Part intellectual autobiography and part exposition of complex yet contemporary economic ideas, this lively conversation with renowned scholar and public intellectual Kenneth J. Arrow focuses on economics and politics in light of history, current events, and philosophy as well. Reminding readers that economics is about redistribution and thus about how we treat each other, Arrow shows that the intersection of economics and ethics is of concern not just to economists but for the public more broadly. With a (...) foreword by Amartya Sen, this book highlights the belief that government can be a powerful force for good, and is particularly relevant in the current political climate and to the lay reader as well as the economist. (shrink)

I comment on Amartya Sen's study of the relations between the analysis of freedom and the theory of social choice. Two of his themes are analysed with regard to their contribution to an analytic understanding of the issues. These are: (1) the multiple interpretations of the concept of ‘preferences’ as a foundation for the formal conceptualizations of social choice and freedom; and (2) some issues in the formalization of freedom as a value to be compared with outcomes. Under (2), I (...) mainly point out some difficulties in the existing analyses and mildly support a ‘flexibility’ interpretation of freedom that I have advanced earlier. I conclude with some observations drawn from history and literature which complicate the value bien-pensant thinkers are prone to place on freedom. (Published Online February 16 2006). (shrink)

One of the central questions of economics relates to the coordination of individual units within a large organization to achieve the central objectives of that organization. This book examines the problems involved in allocating resources in an economic system where decision-making is decentralized into the hands of individuals and individual enterprises. The decisions made by these economic agents must be coordinated because the input decisions of some must eventually equal the output decisions of others. Coordination arises naturally out of the (...) mathematical theory of optimization but there is still the question of how it can be achieved in practice with dispersed knowledge. The essays here explore the many facets of this problem. Nine papers are grouped under the title 'Economies with a single maximand'. They include papers on static and dynamic optimization, decentralization within firms, and nonconvexities in optimizing problems. Fourteen papers are concerned with 'Economies with multiple objectives'. Among the topics covered here are stability of competitive equilibrium, stability in oligopology, and dynamic shortages. The final part of the book includes three papers on informational efficiency and informationally decentralized systems. Leonid Hurwitcz is the Nobel Prize Winner 2007 for The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, along with colleagues Eric Maskin and Roger Myerson, for his work on the effectiveness of markets. (shrink)

This volume contains a selection of Professor Uzawa's important contributions to mathematical economics. Subjects covered by these nineteen essays include consumption, production, equilibrium, capital, growth, planning, international trade, and the theory of social overhead capital. Written in the 1960s and early 1970s, the papers form a basis upon which economic theory has developed over the last twenty years. The collection includes some of Uzawa's classic contributions, such as 'Preference and Rational Choice in the Theory of Consumption', 'Time Preference, the Consumption (...) Function, and Optimum Asset Holdings', 'Neutral Inventions and the Stability of Growth Equilibrium', 'On a Two-Sector Model of Economic Growth', 'Time Preference and the Penrose Effect in a Two-Class Model of Economic Growth', and 'On the Economics of Social Overhead Capital'. The collection will be useful not only in understanding the nature of the development in economic theory today, but also in reflecting upon the direction toward which economic theory will be advancing in the future. (shrink)

Professor Kenneth J. Arrow is one of the most distinguished economic theorists. He has played a major role in shaping the subject and is honoured by the publication of three volumes of essays on economic theory. Each volume deals with a different area of economic theory. The books include contributions by some of the best economic theorists from the United States, Japan, Israel and Europe.

Professor Kenneth J. Arrow is one of the most distinguished economic theorists. He has played a major role in shaping the subject and is honoured by the publication of three volumes of essays on economic theory. Each volume deals with a different area of economic theory. The books include contributions by some of the best economic theorists from the United Stated, Japan, Israel and Europe. This second volume is entitled Equilibrium Analysis and is divided into sections on general (...) equilibrium and on the microfoundations of macroeconomics. (shrink)

Professor Kenneth J. Arrow is one of the most distinguished economic theorists. He has played a major role in shaping the subject and is honoured by the publication of three volumes of essays on economic theory. Each volume deals with a different area of economic theory. The books include contributions by some of the best economic theorists from the United Stated, Japan, Israel and Europe. This third volume is entitled Uncertainty, Information, and Communication.

Professor Kenneth J. Arrow is one of the most distinguished economic theorists. He has played a major role in shaping the subject and is honoured by the publication of three volumes of essays on economic theory. Each volume deals with a different area of economic theory. The books include contributions by some of the best economic theorists from the United States, Japan, Israel and Europe.

This book is written for the non-philosophy major taking 'Contemporary Moral Issues' or 'Intro to Ethics' courses. It provides a method to research any complex moral issue in hundreds of print, periodical, and Internet research sources, and gives a model of the method applied to the question of capital punishment.

This study examines cheating behaviors among 742 marketing and management majors at three public AACSB-accredited business schools. Specifically, we studied the simultaneous influence of demographic and attitudinal characteristics on: (1) reported prior cheating behavior; (2) the tendency to neutralize cheating behaviors; and, (3) likelihood of future cheating. We additionally examined the impact of in-class deterrents on neutralization of cheating behaviors and the likelihood of future cheating. We also directly tested potential mediating effects of neutralization on cheating behavior.We conducted independent assessments (...) of the validity of the Smith et al. (2002) model of cheating behavior and its antecedents using structural equations modeling procedures. Results supported the differentiation of the theoretical constructs within the specified process model. Furthermore, tests of the aforementioned theoretical model indicated that the primary influences on future cheating were prior cheating, and the degree to which one neutralized prior cheating behaviors. Equally noteworthy, in contrast to previous research we found in-class deterrents to have no significant influence in either neutralizing behavior or future cheating proclivities. (shrink)

After decades of acrimonious debate on the nature of scientific knowledge, researchers in the human or social sciences are reaching a state of relative equanimity, a condition that may be characterized as a reflective pragmatism. Yet, even while the context has favored the development of new forms of research, the longstanding ocular metaphor of inquiry remains pervasive. That is, researchers continue the practice of observing what is the case, with the intent to illuminate, understand, report on, or furnish insight into (...) given states of affairs. And, while selectively useful, such an orientation is not only limited in potential but subject to a receding span of application. As I will propose, when the logics of reflective pragmatism are fully extended, we enter a new territory of understanding, one in which the vision of research is radically altered. We replace the captivating gaze on the world as it is with value based explorations into what it could be. This conception of a future forming orientation to research opens the way to new aims, practices, and reflections. (shrink)

Behavior, language, development, identity, and science—all of these phenomena are commonly characterized as 'social' in nature. But what does it mean to be 'social'? Is there any intrinsic 'mark' of the social shared by these phenomena? In the first book to shed light on this foundational question, twelve distinguished philosophers and social scientists from several disciplines debate the mark of the social. Their varied answers will be of interest to sociologists, anthropologists, philosophers, psychologists, and anyone interested in the theoretical foundations (...) of the social sciences. (shrink)

This paper 1) argues that libertarians are virtually as badly off as compatibilists in the face of the objection to the Free Will Defence that omnipotent God could have ensured that all free beings always but freely did right, and 2) explores the prospects for an "upgraded" Free Will Defense which takes freedom merely as a necessary condition for a further higher good which logically could not be achieved if God employed any of the available strategies--under both compatibilist and libertarian (...) assumptions--for creating morally free beings without the risk of moral evil. (shrink)

Recent research questions the validity of student evaluation of teaching (SET) data to measure teaching and learning. Yet, there is extensive use of this instrument around the world, which arguably contributes to a decline in the rigor of college classes. This performance measurement has lead to both unethical grade inflation and coursework deflation as faculty try to entertain students rather than educating them. These unethical teaching techniques used by many faculties are on the same plane as the unethical practices of (...) executives “cooking their books.” Ethical and unethical SET management techniques of professors are discussed herein, along with incentive and structural pander pollution of administrators and universities. (shrink)

Responds to the reviews by K. O'Doherty and J. W. Clegg of the current author's book, Relational being: Beyond self and community . One of my chief reactions to the resistances represented in these reviews is that the volume failed to make clear a vision of how we might go on together in the academic world where different viewpoints dominate. To elaborate: both reviewers take issue with my relational account in terms of its seeming dismissal or eradication of cherished concepts—including (...) for Clegg, personal experience, genuine selfknowledge, and independent moral agency; and for O’Doherty, individual awareness, agency, and causality. In a certain sense their resistances are justified. My account raises critical concerns with such concepts, and in certain cases offers a radical reconceptualization. Both reviewers also suggest that these are questions of fundamental ontology, and offer arguments against what they see as my faulty foundations. However, as I tried to explain in the work, I approach theory development from a social constructionist perspective. This means replacing the traditional goal of the theorist to “tell the truth” about the world, with the attempt to generate an intelligibility that may foster different—and possibly more viable—forms of life. In effect, I am not attempting to articulate a final philosophy; I neither propose nor wish to argue ontology. From a constructionist perspective such arguments are futile; on what grounds other than those we construct could we settle such differences? Now to be fair, both Clegg and O’Doherty recognize this constructionist background, and my attempt to avoid eliminating alternative traditions or conceptions. However, this recognition does not deter them from returning to questions of fundamentals; they seem to want a knock-down conflict in which “justified true belief” will win out. 2012 APA, all rights reserved). (shrink)

From schools advertising McDonald's, Nike, and Shell oil to military generals appointed as superintendents; from corporate CEOs hailed as education experts to students suspended for wearing Pepsi tee shirts on Coke day; Collateral Damage sifts through a wide range of incidents to reveal how the rising corporatization of public schools needs to be understood as a part of a broader attack on the public sector. Uniquely, Collateral Damage considers the privatization of public education in relation to both globalization and local (...) struggles over curriculum, schools, and culture. (shrink)

‘The Strong Arm of the Law’ seeks to explain how the identification with military power that is produced through corporate mass mediated spectacles such as bodybuilding threatens democratic identifications. What is more, the militarized body aims at ever-greater control over the physical world yet results only in evergreater estrangement from it. The article begins by illustrating the martial dimensions of the bodybuilder’s body. Then, it reveals the extent to which the built body promises safety, security, and freedom while contributing to (...) the militarization of civil society – a process at odds with democratization. Next, it demonstrates the logic behind the bodybuilder’s identification and appeal as not merely soldier but weapon. The article concludes by raising the possibility of imagining the democratized body. (shrink)