Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-42gr6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-18T09:53:54.688Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The humanities are scientific: a reply to the defenses of economic neo-institutionalism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 November 2015

DEIRDRE NANSEN McCLOSKEY
DEIRDRE NANSEN McCLOSKEY*
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, History, English, and Communications, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA
*
*Email: deirdre2@uic.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

I reply to amiable criticisms by Greif, Mokyr, Langlois, Lawson, and Tabellini of my own criticism of neo-institutionalism. They say that ‘culture’ is included in neo-institutionalism – which is mistaken on any serious definition of culture, such as those involving ethics, rhetoric, ideology, and ideas. They also say that neo-institutionalism has advanced beyond Max U and Samuelsonian economics. That's also mistaken. They do not attend to the humanities, which as ‘humanomics’ can indeed acknowledge ‘culture’ and non-Max U. Their particular historical examples show the opposite of what they think is shown. Ideas, rhetoric, ethics changed, and had to change, before institutions mattered.

Type
Comment
Information
Journal of Institutional Economics , Volume 12 , Issue 1 , March 2016 , pp. 63 - 78
Copyright
Copyright © Millennium Economics Ltd 2015 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Acemoglu, D. and Robinson, J. A. (2012), Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty, New York: Crown Business.Google Scholar
Allen, R. C. (2009), The British Industrial Revolution in Global Perspective, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Armstrong, K. (2009 [2010]), The Case for God. New York: Knopf/Anchor Books.Google Scholar
Banfield, E. C. (1958), The Moral Basis of a Backward Society, New York: Free press.Google Scholar
Boettke, P. (2011), ‘Why the Great Stagnation Thesis is the Most Subversive Libertarian Argument of Our Age’ (blog post), The Coordination Problem, http://www.coordinationproblem.org/2011/07. Accessed September 20, 2015.Google Scholar
Butler, J. B. (1725 [1736, n.d.]), Fifteen Sermons. In The Analogy of Religion and Fifteen Sermons (1736), pp. 335–528. Reprint, London: Religious Tract Society, n.d.Google Scholar
Cheung, S. N. S. (1982), ‘Will China go Capitalist?’, Hobart Papers. London: Institute of Economic Affairs.Google Scholar
Choi, Y. B. (1993), Paradigms and Conventions: Uncertainty, Decision-Making and Entrepreneurship, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Easterly, W. (2001), The Elusive Quest for Growth: Economists’ Adventures and Misadventures in the Tropics, Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Fogel, R. W. and Engerman, S. L. (1974), Time on the Cross: The Economics of American Negro Slavery, New York: Norton.Google Scholar
Greif, A. and Mokyr, J. (2015), ‘Institutions and Economic History: A Critique of Professor McCloskey’, Journal of Institutional Economics, published online. DOI:10.1017/S1744137415000417.Google Scholar
Hirschman, A. O. (1970), Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States, Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Kelly, M., Gráda, C. Ó. and Mokyr, J. (2013), ‘Precocious Albion: A New Interpretation of the British Industrial Revolution’, School of Economics, University College Dublin. For the Annual Reviews of Economics.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kirzner, I. (1973), Competition and Entrepreneurship, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Langlois, R. N. (2015), ‘Institutions for Getting Out of the Way’, Journal of Institutional Economics, published online. DOI: 10.1017/S1744137415000375.Google Scholar
Lawson, R. A. (2015), ‘Can Two Observations Confirm a Theory? A Comment on Max U versus Humanomics’, Journal of Institutional Economics, published online. DOI: 10.1017/S174413741500017X.Google Scholar
Levi, C. (1945), Christ Stopped at Eboli: The Story of a Year. Frances Frenaye, tr, New York: Ferrar, Straus, and Company, 1947. http://archive.org/stream/christstoppedate013078mbp/christstoppedate013078mbp_djvu.txt.Google Scholar
Lincoln, A. (1858 [1894]), ‘First of the Lincoln-Douglas Debates’. Ottawa, Illinois, in Nicolay, J. G. and Hay, J. (eds.), Abraham Lincoln: Complete Works, Comprising His Speeches, Letters, State Papers, and Miscellaneous Writings, vol. 1, New York: Century. Available at: https://archive.org/details/abelinccompwks02lincrich.Google Scholar
McCloskey, D. N. (1976), ‘English Open Fields as Behavior Towards Risk’, Research in Economic History, 1 (1): 124–170.Google Scholar
McCloskey, D. N. (1994), Knowledge and Persuasion in Economics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
McCloskey, D. N. (2006), The Bourgeois Virtues: Ethics for an Age of Commerce, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
McCloskey, D. N. (2010), Bourgeois Dignity: Why Economics Can't Explain the Modern World, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
McCloskey, D. N. (2015), ‘Two Cheers for Corruption’, [Review of Sarah Chayes's Thieves of State and Jay Cost's a Republic No More.] Wall Street Journal, 28.Google Scholar
McCloskey, D. N. (2015), ‘Max U versus Humanomics: A Critique of Neoinstitutionalism’, Journal of Institutional Economics, published online. DOI: 10.1017/S1744137415000053.Google Scholar
McCloskey, D. N. (2016 forthcoming), Bourgeois Equality: How Ideas, Not Capital or Institutions, Enriched the World, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
North, D. C. (1981), Structure and Change in Economic History, New York: Norton.Google Scholar
North, D. C. (1990), Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance, Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
North, D. C. and Weingast, B. (1989), ‘Constitutions and Commitment: The Evolution of Institutions Governing Public Choice in Seventeenth-Century England’, Journal of Economic History, 49 (4): 803–832.Google Scholar
Rorty, A. O. (1983), ‘Experiments in Philosophical Genre: Descartes’ Meditations’, Critical Inquiry, 9: 545–565.Google Scholar
Schumpeter, J. A. (1912 [1934]), The Theory of Economic Development, English Trans. From 1926 German Edition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Searle, J. R. (2010), Making the Social World: The Structure of Human Civilization, Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, A. (1759 [1790]), The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Glasgow Edition, in Raphael, D. D. and Macfie, A. L. (eds.), Indianapolis: Liberty Classics, 1976, 1982.Google Scholar
Tabellini, G. (2015), ‘Ideas or Institutions: A Comment’, Journal of Institutional Economics, published online. DOI: 10.1017/S1744137415000338.Google Scholar
Wigner, E. (1960), ‘The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics in the Natural Sciences’, Communications in Pure and Applied Mathematics, 13 (1): 1–14.Google Scholar
Wilson, B. J. (2010), ‘Social preferences aren't preferences’, Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 73 (1): 77–82.Google Scholar
Ziliak, S. and McCloskey, D. N. (2008), The Cult of Statistical Significance: How the Standard Error Costs Us Jobs, Justice, and Lives, Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar