Scarce Means, Competing Ends: Lord Robbins and the Foundations of Contextual Economics

Sturn, Richard

doi:10.3790/schm.136.1.59

Cited by 4 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 10 publications

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“…It has prominently neglected the role of institutions in economic and social life. However, the importance of economizing remains paramount also for institutionally minded economists (Sturn 2016). For example, in Williamson's (2000) institutions-based model of multi-level economizing, higher levels are imposing constraints on the levels immediately below.…”

Section: Environment As a Constraintmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In this sense, such analysis of institutions stands solidly in the neoclassical tradition of spotlighting relative costs and benefits as the relevant determinants of behavior. However, as Sturn (2016) points out, the focus on economizing within constraints has led economists to ignore certain types of contexts where the relationship between individual agents and their environment is not as straightforward as standard theory suggests.…”

Section: Environment As a Constraintmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The central argument of this paper builds on the assertion by Sturn (2016) that contextual economics should abandon the notion of economizing within "the orderly world of pure economic transactions" as its central analytical concern (80). Instead, it should move toward embracing the analysis of "complex, messy situations" (ibid.).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Instead, it should move toward embracing the analysis of "complex, messy situations" (ibid.). Sturn (2016) argues that the exclusive focus on economizing has resulted in the neglect of certain types of contexts where scarcity is not the defining feature but where various non-scarcity interdependencies result in dynamics of increasing returns. This view, however, still conceives of the environment as having an essentially passive role.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Environment as a Resource, not a Constraint

Remic¹

2021

SCHM

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In this article I argue that the study of contextual issues in economics has been limited in its scope because economists have mostly conceived of the environment as a constraint on individual action. I identify and discuss three conventions that pull economists into such conceptualization of the environment. For each of the three I provide ways forward for contextual economics to avoid the pull. I then employ insights from the recent cognitive science on socially extended mind to demonstrate how the project of contextual economics as envisioned in this article can benefit from reconceptualizing the environment not as a constraint on individual action but as a resource for constituting socially extended cognitive processes. Rather than being simply about gathering more and better data, contextual economics can offer a powerful approach for studying social world based on entangled interactions between individual actors and their environments.

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Section: Environment As a Constraintmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Environment As a Constraintmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Environment as a Resource, not a Constraint

Remic¹

2021

SCHM

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Ideology, power, and progress: Economics and its dilemmas

Sturn

2022

AOecon

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The complex co-evolution of economics as a scientific discipline is accompanied by two dilemmas which are reflecting ambivalent effects of two ideologies: economism and scientism. Economics may go wrong when certain tendencies occasioned by those inevitable “ideological” influences are ignored. Pertinent problems include pseudo-rationalist conceptions of policy advice and the failure to deal with the limited status of partial analysis and abstractive dichotomies (notably allocation – distribution), the status of core concepts such as scarcity, instrumental rationality, exchange, and contract, as well as the related abstraction from power, distribution, and human sociality relevant for non-contractual interaction in various spheres of social life, including the market economy.

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The Importance of Context for the Development of Labour Market Theory and Policy

Altman¹

2021

SCHM

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Labour market theory underlies much of economic analysis with implications for theory and policy. I argue that conventional approaches to the labour market as well as more modern approaches represented by aspects of behavioural labour economics and Keynesian economics are often decontextualized from how individuals actually behave and the institutions affecting their behaviour. Building labour market models with empirically valid assumptions about human behaviour and individuals' decision-making environment casts doubt on key core predictions of contemporary economics, such as: higher wages are bad for the economy; improvements in conditions of work and social support are economically damaging; lower real wages are a prerequisite to increasing macro employment, and workers prefer leisure over work. These models also challenge the view put forth by heuristics and biases type behavioural economists that workers behave irrationally, are biased, and therefore make decisions that are sub-optimal, damaging to themselves and the economy at large.

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Scarce Means, Competing Ends: Lord Robbins and the Foundations of Contextual Economics

Cited by 4 publications

References 10 publications

Environment as a Resource, not a Constraint

Environment as a Resource, not a Constraint

Ideology, power, and progress: Economics and its dilemmas

The Importance of Context for the Development of Labour Market Theory and Policy

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