Behavioral & Experimental Economics
Economics, Values, and Organization
Cambridge University Press (1998)
This extraordinary collection of essays by leading scholars in several sub-fields of the economics profession helped to launch the revolution in behavioral economics and economics of values. It remains a touchstone of economists’ pivot towards including human values in their studies and thinking. It begins with a foreword by the economics discipline’s most influential philosophical thinker, Amartya K. Sen (winner of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Economics), and ends with an epilogue by the economic historian and leading thinker on the economics of institutions, Douglass C. North (winner of the 1993 Nobel Prize in Economics). It includes the introductory essay “Values and Institutions in Economic Analysis” by Ben-Ner and Putterman, and has contributions by numerous important economists including Ken Binmore, Robert Sugden, Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Robert H. Frank, and Ernst Fehr and Simon Gächter. Provocative essays include “Institutions and crowding out” by Bruno Frey and “The joyless market economy” by Robert E. Lane. With book jacket endorsements by two additional Nobel laureates in economics, Robert Solow and George Akerlof, as well as the seminal figure in the theory of trust, Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam.
“The contributors to this book have both guts and brains. They are tackling deep issues that most of us just wave at. No reflective reader will want to miss this.”
– Robert M. Solow, MIT
“Economists have the right methodology, but sociologists have the right variables, or so it is sometimes said. This mismatch has begun to be corrected, as rigorous, interdisciplinary work has begun on the connection between values, institutions, and economics. This important collective volume harvests some of the first fruits of this new work. It should be of wide interest throughout the social sciences.”
– Robert Putnam, Harvard University
“This is an extremely valuable collection on the ‘hottest’ topic in economic theory: how values shape institutions and institutions shape values. This is probably the single most important question that economists have left unanswered – until now.”
– George Akerlof, University of California Berkeley