This paper examines Mark Blaug's position on the normative character of Paretian welfare economics: in general, and specifically with respect to his debate with Pieter Hennipman over this question during the 1990s. The paper also clarifies some of the confusions that emerged within the context...

Unlike standard accounts, recent research in the history of macroeconomics has given increasing attention to the Old Keynesians’ criticisms of the New Classical Economics. In this paper, I address the case of Edmond Malinvaud, who began opposing the latter from the early 1980s and did so...

The death of welfare economics has been declared several times. One of the reasons cited for these plural obituaries is that Kenneth Arrow's impossibility theorem, as set out in his path-breaking Social Choice and Individual Values in 1951, has shown that the social welfare function - one of the...

This paper provides a welfare analysis of trade liberalization based upon the moral principles of utilitarianism. The history of the moral philosophy of utilitarianism is described including its introduction into what became known as Cambridge welfare economics. The differences between this...

Four talks on Keynes in relation to the Bloomsbury Group: I. Maynard Keynes of Bloomsbury (Craufurd Goodwin); II. Keynes as Policy Advisor (E. Roy Weintraub); III. Keynes and Economics (Kevin D. Hoover); IV. Keynes and Hayek (Bruce Caldwell). The talks were delivered as part of roundtable...

Our forthcoming book, Welfare Theory, Public Action and Ethical Values challenges the belief that, until modern welfare economics introduced issues such as justice, freedom and equality, economists adopted what Amartya Sen called “welfarism.” This is the belief that the welfare of society...

In recent years the term behavioral economics has arisen in consequence of the growing effort of a significant set of economists to import psychological methods and findings into economics. This body of work issues strong challenges to the use economists have made of rationality in economics....

The death of welfare economics has been declared several times. One of the reasons cited for these plural obituaries is that Kenneth Arrow's impossibility theorem, as set out in his path-breaking Social Choice and Individual Values in 1951, has shown that the social welfare function – one of...

In the second edition of his methodological Essay, Lionel Robbins attributes a significant role to uncertainty, dynamics and the time element. Understanding the motives that led to these revisions may offer important clues to assess what happened to political economy ever since, and how far...

Behavioral paternalism raises deep concerns that do not arise in traditional welfare economics. These concerns stem from behavioral paternalism's acceptance of the defining axioms of neoclassical rationality for normative purposes, despite having rejected them as positive descriptions of...