De gustibus<i>est</i>disputandum: Frank H. Knight's reply to George Stigler and Gary Becker's ‘De gustibus non est disputandum’ with an introductory essay

Emmett, Ross B.

doi:10.1080/13501780600566453

Cited by 60 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…At the individual level, this is the world of creative experimentation where utility functions would be described as only partially ordered, as complete ordering requires the nonconstructive solution to a fixed-point problem (Lewis, 1985). This dialectical setting contrasts with noncontradiction along the lines that Ross Emmett (2006) portrayed Frank Knight’s critique of the Stigler–Becker claim on behalf of invariant utility functions. For Knight, a significant part of individual action entailed reflection-induced change.…”

Section: Generation Versus Stipulation In Systems Modelingmentioning

confidence: 98%

Contrasting Visions for Macroeconomic Theory: DSGE and OEE

Devereaux

Wagner

2018

The American Economist

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Dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) modeling remains the workhorse of contemporary macroeconomics despite a growing number of critiques of its ability to explain the aggregate properties of an economic system. For the most part, those critiques accept the DSGE presumption that traditional macro data are primitive, causal data. This leads to a stipulative style of analysis where macro variables are explained in terms of one another. In contrast, we set forth an open-ended evolutionary (OEE) framework for an OEE macroeconomics. Within this framework, systems data are not primitive, but are derived from prior microlevel interactions without any presumption that those macrolevel derivations reflect systemic equilibrium among the microlevel primitive sources of action. We explore some contours of an OEE framework by placing coordination games within an ecological setting where there is no agent who has universal knowledge relevant to that ecology of games. JEL Classifications: B40, C73, D51, D85, E02

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Section: Generation Versus Stipulation In Systems Modelingmentioning

confidence: 98%

Contrasting Visions for Macroeconomic Theory: DSGE and OEE

Devereaux

Wagner

2018

The American Economist

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“…The one thing noticeably absent from Buchanan's account is the extent to which economics also produces knowledge about values, it is perhaps a legacy of Frank Knight who sought a radical demarcation between facts and values, but even that is a somewhat implausible explanation. After all for Knight life was primarily about the discovery of values (Emmett 2006). It seems all the more strange since Buchanan himself emphasizes the process of becoming repeatedly in his work (Buchanan 1979;Dekker 2017).…”

Section: Knowledge and Emancipationmentioning

confidence: 99%

On emancipators, engineers, and students: The appropriate attitude of the economist

Dekker

2019

Rev Austrian Econ

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This paper presents an original conceptualization of the different attitudes economists have expressed toward their object of study. It distinguishes between a humanist and a scientist tradition in economics and argues that both stances can be combined with an active and a passive attitude. This results in four different positions or attitudes, that of the positive scientist (passive scientist), the social engineer (active scientist), the student (passive humanist) and the emancipator (active humanist). The paper explores the implications of the four positions and it argues that there are many threads within Austrian economics and Virigina Political Economy that point toward the attitude of the active humanist. As such it is an extension and a correction of the distinction drawn between the student and the scientist in my book Viennese students of Civilization (2016). It is argued that the emancipator position has to explicitly engage with what Buchanan calls 'might-bes', that is hypothetical changes in rules, institutions, or human behavior, and as such has important links with the critical tradition on the left.

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Section: The Broad Integrability Problem In Early 20th Century Conmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Griffith Evans (1930) was extremely critical of utility theory, arguing that while it is reasonable to talk about a value function for small changes in consumption, the integrability problem means that it 'cannot extend it beyond a merely local field unless we are willing to make some transcendental hypothesis about the existence of such a function' (Evans, 1930, p. 122). Harro Bernardelli (1938) considered a version of path-dependent utility, and Frank Knight consistently argued that assuming tastes were unchanged by the act of choice was serious error in economic theory (see Emmett, 2006). It should also be noted that even though by the late 1940s Samuelson did not consider integrability a serious problem (Samuelson, 1950)-and in fact was one of those most responsible for translating integrability into the mathematical problem of rationalizing demand functions-his own consumer choice theory of 1938 (what later came to be called revealed preference theory) was in fact a non-integrable theory of consumer behavior.…”

Section: Back To the Ordinalist Revolution 399mentioning

confidence: 99%

Back to the Ordinalist Revolution: Behavioral Economic Concerns in Early Modern Consumer Choice Theory

Hands

2010

Metroeconomica

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The paper argues that theoretical work on consumer choice theory during the early 20th century addressed some of the same issues discussed in recent behavioral economics. This is not generally recognized because the discussion was tied up with the integrability question, the theoretical framework did not involve risky choice or expected utility theory, and the relevant evidence was introspective rather than experimental. The paper makes the case for the similarity and discusses why it is important.

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De gustibusestdisputandum: Frank H. Knight's reply to George Stigler and Gary Becker's ‘De gustibus non est disputandum’ with an introductory essay

Cited by 60 publications

References 11 publications

Contrasting Visions for Macroeconomic Theory: DSGE and OEE

Contrasting Visions for Macroeconomic Theory: DSGE and OEE

On emancipators, engineers, and students: The appropriate attitude of the economist

Back to the Ordinalist Revolution: Behavioral Economic Concerns in Early Modern Consumer Choice Theory

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