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Social scientists must grapple with how to pursue knowledge about an uncertain and complex world. This challenge is accentuated when scholars wish to engage responsibly with policy-makers and the public in the interests of social betterment. In this article, we use the scholarly literature on uncertainty and complexity to examine how these issues complicate the practice of engaged scholarship. We ground our analysis in interviews with publicly engaged scholars on the ethical challenges they have faced and how they have navigated uncertainties and complexities in their applied work in peace and security. We identify four broad ethical dilemmas associated with publicly engaged scholarship and propose ways that scholars might begin to navigate these challenges. Our analysis urges greater acceptance of uncertainty and complexity in the social science community and associated epistemic humility in collective scholarship, pedagogy and public engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, social scientists have begun to study the implications of increasing pressures in the early academic career. Studies focusing mostly on the life sciences have shown junior scholars making research decisions based on a productivity logic to increase their chances of career success. In this paper, we extend this literature to the very different context of economics, characterized by a dominant mainstream, a clear hierarchy, and an independent/small-team approach to scholarship. Adopting a culture-in-action framework, we analyze how cultural repertoires help early career economists deal with the sometimes competing career pressures associated with working in high-status departments. Drawing from in-depth interviews with tenure-track economists in three Scandinavian countries, we find that skillful use of discovery-talk and delivery-talk helps respondents respond to the challenges they face as junior academics. Implications for research include the avoidance of, e.g., interdisciplinary work and questions of only regional importance. Furthermore, the data indicate that discovery and delivery notions partly overlap and so contribute to preserving economics as a relatively coherent and homogenous field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper defends that it is possible to offer a Kantian argument for justifying the introduction of Universal Basic Income (UBI). It first briefly presents Philippe van Parijs' argument for UBI based on the concept of real freedom for all. In doing so, it will focus on its general structure and central insight, without entering too much into other issues like the economic feasibility of UBI. It second briefly presents Kant's concept of external freedom and especially focuses on some of its components to assess whether there is some closeness to van Parijs' concept of real freedom. It further considers whether UBI is not only compatible with a Kantian position, but can be justified from such a position because it represents a tool for concretely realizing external freedom as presented in the Doctrine of Right and for attaining the ethical ideal of virtuosity presented in the Doctrine of Virtue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on ideas, truth, and the academy-state relationship. Topics include that ideas are associated with people and people interact within institutions; relationship of institutions with survivability; and that social scientists need a more nuanced approach to how ideas, institutions, and interests play out in generating social change.

A literary criticism of the book "Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy" by Joseph A. Schumpeter, is presented. Topics discussed include Schumpeter's home discipline, to history to sociology to political science to law to philosophy to business and entrepreneurship; and work dealing with questions surrounding the logic of economic, social, and political change and organization.

A literary criticism of the book "The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism" by Max Weber is presented. Topics discussed include extensive debate concerning both the validity of the work's method and the accuracy of its substantive theses; the features of this asceticism resemble in large part the ethical orientation within Protestantism; and that capitalism is capable of a multiplicity of forms is conventional in the contemporary context.

Although social scientists have been investigating the nature and impact of job satisfaction for many decades, economists only started to investigate job satisfaction systematically in the late 1980′s. Almost from the first systematic studies of job satisfaction by economists, the research potential of the notion of pay level comparisons was realized. The idea of pay level comparisons in job satisfaction has proven particularly useful also because it has important implications for a number of standard theoretical and economic policy results. However, the inclusion of the variable of comparison wage in job satisfaction and the resulting supporting empirical findings, are in sharp contrast to the orthodox approach, given that in mainstream economic theory an individuals' utility is usually assumed to be a function of absolute income only. Despite the important theoretical and policy implications, mainstream economic theory has not paid much heed to the job satisfaction conceptual formulations and empirical findings. The paper argues that there are methodological reasons for this state of affairs which seem to be linked to the subjective well-being research in general, and to the job satisfaction literature in particular. A strong mistrust against the method of stated preferences and the still inherent methodological bias against the integration of psychological findings, are suggested as the two prime reasons. Although a few prominent figures in job satisfaction research have realized the mainstream methodological attitude, it is necessary that job satisfaction specialists should consider more seriously the methodological limitations of traditional mainstream economics that relate to their research field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses about the new generation of critical theorists, seeking to poke holes in the history of economic theory and liberal political economy. Topics discussed include demonstrating the inherent inefficiency, instability and immorality of the capitalist system; an intellectual crisis in the fields of intellectual history and the discipline of history; and abandoning of the disciplines of history and intellectual history.

Scientists across disciplines must often work together to address pressing global issues facing our societies. For interdisciplinary projects to flourish, scientists must recognise the potential contribution of other disciplines in answering key research questions. Recent research suggested that social sciences may be appreciated less than hard sciences overall. Building on the extensive evidence of ingroup bias and ethnocentrism in intergroup relations, however, one could also expect scientists, especially those belonging to high status disciplines, to play down the contributions of other disciplines to important research questions. The focus of the present research was to investigate how hard and social scientists perceive one another and the impact of interdisciplinary collaborations on these perceptions. We surveyed 280 scientists at Wave 1 and with 129 of them followed up at Wave 2 to establish how ongoing interdisciplinary collaborations underpinned perceptions of other disciplines. Based on Wave 1 data, scientists who report having interdisciplinary experiences more frequently are also more likely to recognise the intellectual contribution of other disciplines and perceive more commonalities with them. However, in line with the intergroup bias literature, group membership in the more prestigious hard sciences is related to a stronger tendency to downplay the intellectual contribution of social science disciplines compared to other hard science disciplines. This bias was not present among social scientists who produced very similar evaluation of contribution of hard and social science disciplines. Finally, using both waves of the survey, the social network comparison of discipline pairs shows that asymmetries in the evaluation of other disciplines are only present among discipline pairs that do not have any experience of collaborating with one another. These results point to the need for policies that incentivise new collaborations between hard and social scientists and foster interdisciplinary contact. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the Obama administration, America made a shift in its foreign policies to re-focus on Asia. The strategy, known as 'Pivot to Asia', was used to contain a rising China. In this editorial note, I appropriate the geopolitical term to call for a scholarly refocus on Asia (and the broader Asia Pacific region). JCEA started as an area journal. While it has become more technology-focused and less geographically-bounded in its coverage of topics, the journal recognizes the centrality of the region's political economy and technological forces in setting (and upsetting) global norms and rules. The Asia Pacific contains the world's freest economies as well as the most oppressive regimes. It breeds both technology giants and laggards. As new geopolitical tensions loom, it is where the digital iron curtain is drawn, and where the vice and virtue of innovations debated. Social scientists in the English world, who lend extensively on European and American cases, can benefit from studying the Asia Pacific by testing whether and how local experience conforms to or confronts with universal theories. Very likely, western-centric norms and models become morphed and entangled in the grounded local particularity, reflecting many shades of this diverse place. In my arguments below, I highlight the Asia Pacific as a site of contradiction, as well as a site of contention and negotiation. My emphasis is that regional particularity holds the key to answer concurrent debates in the West concerning governance and accountability in the digital age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Science is often described as a set of discipline-specific paradigms that share common concepts, theories, and practices. However, during the Anthropocene, this image of science has become inapplicable and is potentially damaging. Today, many natural and social scientists confront problems and systems that transgress traditional disciplinary boundaries--we focus on ecologists and economists. We claim that these changes justify rethinking the prevailing image of science, along with the relation between life scientists and social scientists. The time is ripe to recognize the new normal in Anthropocene science and spell out what transdisciplinary problems entail for research practice. We suggest three central issues should be recognized by any adequate characterization of the new normal. First, given the preponderance of natural-social systems in the Anthropocene, we claim that there are circumstances when analyzing such systems requires new methodological standards. Second, Anthropocene science will increasingly involve discussions that link the normative and the scientific, where questions of how and what we should study imply questions of value. Finally, because the vast majority of Anthropocene science will be interdisciplinary, we identify some of the mechanisms that allow researchers to engage with social scientists and scholars in the humanities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The early decades of the 20th century witnessed much discussion about the separation between positive and normative analysis, and the legitimacy of the prescriptive claims often advanced by social scientists. The paper investigates British debates about the reconstruction of the world order as a topic that brought together social analysts with very different backgrounds, and had the LSE as one of its focal points. The urgency of international politics at the time made it more difficult to sustain a clear distinction between positive analysis and policy prescription. To Lionel Robbins, the topic belonged to the applied domain of political economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I The books in this edition of Book Shelf have been selected along the following lines: provide an historical perspective about development and explain how globalization is shaping up within the Global South; tell about stories and examples of resistance by social movements and their attempts to put in place alternative models to the current globalizing capitalism; challenge the narrative about privatization and the private sector as playing a leading role in development. i I The Oxford Handbook of Social Movements i discusses core theoretical perspectives, recent contributions from the field, and how patterns of macro social change may affect social movements, as well as suggesting what contributions social movement studies can give to other research areas in various disciplines. Contestations over knowledge - and who controls its production - are a key focus of social movements and other actors that promote food sovereignty, agroecology and biocultural diversity. Rosset and Altieri, two of the world's leading agroecologists, outline the principles, history and currents of agroecological thought, the scientific evidence for agroecology, how to bring agroecology to scale and the contemporary politics of agroecology. [Extracted from the article]

Nighttime lights, calculated from weather satellite recordings, are increasingly used by social scientists as a proxy for economic activity or economic development in subnational regions of developing countries where disaggregated data from statistical offices are not available. However, so far, our understanding of what nighttime lights capture in these countries is limited. We use geo-referenced Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) from 29 African countries to construct indicators of household wealth, education and health for DHS cluster locations as well as for grid cells of roughly 50 × 50 km. We show that nighttime lights are positively associated with these location-specific indicators of human development, and that the variation in nighttime lights can explain a substantial share in the variation in these indicators. We conclude that nighttime lights are a good proxy for human development at the local level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relationship between economic and political inequality has long concerned social scientists, but research remains limited in scope. Most studies focus on isolated cases, highly restricted subsamples, or subunits within countries. Using data for up to 136 countries between 1981 and 2011, this study analyzes whether and how income inequality affects the distribution of political power for, and respect for the civil liberties of, a society’s rich and poor people. When income inequality is high, do rich people command greater political power and enjoy stronger civil liberties than poor people do? To answer these questions, the study uses both pooled regression analyses and two-stage models with instrumental variables to identify causal effects. The results are decisive: income inequality is inimical to both political and civil equality. These findings hold for developed as well as developing countries and for democratic as well as nondemocratic countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on the experiences of the survivors of Hurricane Katrina that damaged Gentilly, New Orleans in 2005. Topics include the recollection of the events during the hurricane in 2005, the methods of recovering used by the people, and the role of social scientists in visiting the affected people.

The first professional societies in the United States, from the 1880s to the 1910s, understood history to be closely associated with the other social sciences. Even in the mid-twentieth century, history was still grouped with the other social sciences, along with economics, sociology, political science, and anthropology. But in the past few decades, history and anthropology in the United States (though not necessarily in other countries) have moved away from the social sciences to ally themselves with the humanities—paradoxically, just when the other social sciences are becoming more committed to historical research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years policy makers and social scientists have devoted considerable attention to wellbeing, a concept that refers to people’s capacity to live healthy, creative and fulfilling lives. Two conceptual approaches dominate wellbeing research. The objective approach examines the objective components of a good life. The subjective approach examines people’s subjective evaluations of their lives. In the objective approach how subjective wellbeing relates to objective wellbeing is not a relevant research question. The subjective approach does investigate how objective wellbeing relates to subjective wellbeing, but has focused primarily on one objective wellbeing indicator, income, rather than the comprehensive indicator set implied by the objective approach. This paper attempts to contribute by examining relationships between a comprehensive set of objective wellbeing measures and subjective wellbeing, and by linking wellbeing research to inequality research by also investigating how subjective and objective wellbeing relate to class, gender, age and ethnicity. We use three waves of a representative state-level household panel study from Queensland, Australia, undertaken from 2008 to 2010, to investigate how objective measures of wellbeing are socially distributed by gender, class, age, and ethnicity. We also examine relationships between objective wellbeing and overall life satisfaction, providing one of the first longitudinal analyses linking objective wellbeing with subjective evaluations. Objective aspects of wellbeing are unequally distributed by gender, age, class and ethnicity and are strongly associated with life satisfaction. Moreover, associations between gender, ethnicity, class and life satisfaction persist after controlling for objective wellbeing, suggesting that mechanisms in addition to objective wellbeing link structural dimensions of inequality to life satisfaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social scientists have often focused upon how transnational corporations and elites mold socioeconomic organization and change in an era of neoliberal globalization. Often overlooked, however, are the active roles played by labor and nature in the construction of contemporary forms of capitalism. Examining the case of Bolivia, this paper explores how the laborers and natures in the country's two dominant economic sectors--hydrocarbons and minerals--shaped the country's neoliberal and counterneoliberal shifts. I argue that, while both sectors were subjected to similar processes of neoliberalization, the materiality of the natural resources and the labor required to extract them have created divergent paths of counter-neoliberalization with different implications for the scope and reach of post-neoliberal possibilities. In theorizing neoliberal and counter-neoliberal shifts, scholars should thus seek to understand not only changing property rights, regulations, and institutional forms, but also the intimate relationships between commodities and their creators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents the debate among African American over education of African Americans in the U.S. Topics discussed are concept of social roots of knowledge by social scientists, integration of community and economics believed by integrationists, and comparison of the integrationists such as sociologist Franklin E. Frazier and separists such as professor Maulana Karenga.

This article argues that the neoclassical era in economics has ended and is being replaced by a new era. What best characterizes the new era is its acceptance that the economy is complex, and thus that it might be called the complexity era. The complexity era has not arrived through a revolution. Instead, it has evolved out of the many strains of neoclassical work, along with work done by less orthodox mainstream and heterodox economists. It is only in its beginning stages. The article discusses the work that is forming the foundation of the complexity era, and how that work will likely change the way in which we understand economic phenomena and the economics profession. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author presents his comments on the article "Beyond Individualism in Law and Economics," by Robert Ahdieh. He notes that social scientist have substituted the robotic rational decision maker of the first generation of law and economics with decision makers. Moreover, he points out that Ahdieh misses the main significance of what has been the situation of economics in legal analysis.

The reader subscription pricing mechanism is the dominant method by which the publication of scholarly journals in economics is funded. This occurs despite the fact that the use of an author charge pricing mechanism, when used in conjunction with a reader charge pricing mechanism, is described in the neoclassical economics literature as a more efficient method for financing journals. The division between the actual financing of economics journals and the theoretical understanding of how journals should be financed highlights deficiencies within the neoclassical economists' understanding of the financing of scholarly journals. In this paper I discuss this divergence in theory and practice in how economists finance their scholarly communication process and the brief attempt by some neoclassical economists to bridge this divide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Keynesian concepts of probability and uncertainty emphasize the basis of knowledge available to economic decision makers. Conditions of uncertainty, which involve missing evidence or doubtful arguments, are distinguished from probable risk. Beyond this, on the basis of the claim that the future is yet to be created, some authors argue for further distinctions among different kinds of uncertainty. The paper reviews this particular argument, distinguishing it from Keynesian uncertainty theory generally, and provides a critique of its implication that, due to innovation, objective distributions of possible events do not generally exist at the time of economic decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Matthew effect has that recognition is bestowed on researchers of already high repute. If recognition is measured by citations, this means that often-cited papers or authors are cited more often. I use the statistical theory of the growth of firms to test whether the fame of papers and authors indeed exhibits increasing returns to scale, and confirm this hypothesis for the 100 most prolific economists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economists studying the economic behaviour of immigrants have tended to avoid serious interdisciplinary work. I argue that, when presented with a particular set of research questions that lend themselves to a utility maximisation framework, an economist will be able to pursue interdisciplinary work. I further argue that the necessary, if not sufficient, ingredient for true economic collaborative research is met in the field of citizenship acquisition. I review the empirical research on citizenship acquisition and its economic impacts to support this argument. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this essay is to provide the historian with a generic understanding of the term economy by examining some aspects of the work of the Hungarian "economic historian" Karl Polanyi (1886-1964). It does not seek to explain Polanyi's economic ideas to economists nor does it seek to locate his ideas within the discourses of the academic discipline of economics; there is abundant academic literature which carries out those tasks. This essay is intended to help fill a void in the historical understanding, especially the modern historical understanding, of the term economy, and of how the characteristics associated with it are generally understood. Yet, in reality, it is the neoclassical paradigm of economics which is typically and uncritically taken to be the touchstone for understanding the economy. This circumstance is problematic, however, when referring to the economy of societies earlier than the late nineteenth century or of societies whose culture differs radically from that of the advanced capitalist "west." Polanyi's insights may help historians avoid the risk of either distorting or anachronistically misunderstanding the economy of such societies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay is a comment on"The Citation Impact of Feminist Economics"by Frances Woolley, which appeared in Feminist Economics, Vol. 11, No. 3, November 2005. This contribution comments on Frances Woolley's recent Feminist Economics article, "The Citation Impact of Feminist Economics." It points to two avenues through which Woolley's article could have better illuminated the extent of Feminist Economics' scholarly relationship with the communities of both heterodox and mainstream economists: first, she omits several important heterodox economic journals in her study, and second, she could have offered a more critical evaluation of mainstream journals and economists relative to Feminist Economics and feminist economists. This paper uses citation data drawn from ten heterodox and ten mainstream journals to identify and build on these gaps. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses Darwin's image among economists with a specific focus on his theory of social evolution as presented in the Descent of Man (1871). We propose an analysis of the way and context in which economists refer to Darwin, mention his name and quote his writings. It then appears that Darwin is most of the time viewed as a biologist only, who never developed his own theory of social evolution. He is thus quoted as a biologist who either borrowed concepts from economists who developed a theory of social evolution, or laid the basis for biological theory of social evolution developed by others, Spencer, in particular. It is only recently that eventually the twofold dimensions - biological and social - of Darwin's general theory of evolution are considered together by bioeconomists. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Geographers working within political-cultural ecology and biogeography have often used a framework, or the general concept, of adaptation. The use of this blanket term, however, was and remains especially problematic for cultural-political ecology research, which tends to focus on a different scale of time–space analysis, while placing greater emphasis on the fine and coarse influences of political economy. To refine our understanding of daily activities that may lead towards adaptation, the concepts of ‘tactics’ and ‘strategy’ can bridge shorter-term phenomena that do not require the leap of scale implied by the loose use and implementation of the term adaptation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We carry out a textual analysis of Sraffa's main published contributions to pure economics in order to elaborate a rational reconstruction of an aspect of Sraffa's implicit methodology which has not yet been duly investigated. We refer to the threefold relationship between 'economic reality', 'the economist/observer' and 'economic theory'. We elucidate the constraints which, for Sraffa, should bind the economists' arbitrariness and we trace the elements of continuity and evolution from the 1925-6 critique of Marshallian economics to Production of Commodities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article features several notable people in economics. They include international and development economist Bruno Amoroso, who focuses on globalization, comparative welfare systems, Mediterranean and Southeast Asia meso-regions. Tony Barnett, who is an interdisciplinary social scientist, is also an Economic and Social Research Council Professional Research Fellow. Also, Josefa S. Francisco who is a south feminist advocacy group.

This paper outlines Marshall's use of Smith's writings in his own published work as an aspect of Marshall's citation practice and to demonstrate Marshall's great admiration for Smith as economist. Section 2 reviews the Smith citations in Marshall's Principles of Economics', section 3 those in Marshall's other published work. The conclusion notes that this citation practice matches Marshall's great admiration Smith the economist, because of Smith's great ability to blend fact and theory, for drawing measured conclusions and, above all, for constructing useful arguments in a field of imprecise knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the connections between American institutionalists and a number of 'non-Marshallian' British economists and social scientists, several of whom were associated with the Fabian Society or the London School of Economics or both. Specifically, the links between institutionalists such as Walton Hamilton and Wesley Mitchell and British social scientists such as John A. Hobson, Henry Clay, R.A. Tawney, William Beveridge and Graham Wallas. It is argued that these connections were related to common views on the importance of institutions, compatible methodological views, common interest in questions of social value, shared policy concerns (particularly unemployment and the coal industry), shared interests in the development of new institutions for education and research in economics and shared connections with the funding activities of the Rockefeller Foundation. These connections were much more extensive than has usually been realized. Some reasons for this British group not to form into a movement similar to American institutionalism are explored. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The economics of African American fatherhood have not been effectively conveyed to social work practitioners. The prevailing assumption of African American fathers by practitioners is that they are absent or dysfunctional. Despite the existence of successful African American fathers, bias in the literature and practice reinforce deficit models as African American. To eliminate bias, social scientists and human service practitioners must devise constructs reflective of the strengths of African American fatherhood. The present paper will bring clarity to ecological factors that impact fatherhood for African Americans and provide human service practitioners more informed perspectives to assist in working with Black families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author provides an economist's perspective on a set of articles examining the role of sociologists in studying recent trends in inequality in the United States. Three themes underlie his comments. First, effective investigations of empirical questions require a combination of statistics and theory. This means the same data can be organized differently according to different theories and doing so leads to greater insight. Second, having more than one discipline work on a problem is helpful not just in providing multiple potential explanations but also in getting researchers to question ortho- doxy within their own disciplines; for example, it is important that sociologists not buy into the economics orthodoxy on inequality. Third, many questions related to recent inequality trends are particularly suited to examinations with sociology's tool kit; evidence from this set of articles is that more sociologists are applying those tools to explaining rising inequality in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economist and sociologist Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923) developed a general theory of social inequality inspired by his discovery of similarities in the shape of the income distribution across societies. Pareto's approach is characterized by (a) a focus on individual, continuous income variation rather than discrete classes; (b) attention paid to the entire socioeconomic distribution rather than summary statistics; (c) an emphasis on social heterogeneity (labor supply) rather than a view of social structure as a collection of empty places (labor demand); and (d) a conception of the inequality structure-and movements of individuals within it—as resulting from the distribution of human abilities interacting with a structure of opportunities (i.e., a structure of social selection). Pareto's vision—part of the common patrimony of economics and sociology—foreshadows emergent approaches to socioeconomic inequality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the African cities as they are battling political, social and economic problems amidst rising security concerns. The privatization of civic services, growing violence and migration have tightened the security policies. The article details the role of social scientists in developing the privatization of security, community policing and urban citizenship. The article also discusses the conflicts involved in the security measures.

A discussion of the book "Remaking Modernity: Politics, History & Sociology" is provided. The author focuses on what he sees as the editors' main arguments that there is currently a third wave of historical sociology research. The author believes that the boundaries between first, second and third wave topics of interest and methodologies are breaking down. According to the author, a number of sociologists are showing a renewed interest in political research and in examining the intersection between politics and economics.

This paper explores the culture in which academic economists work, and tries to show how an appreciation of this culture makes their work more understandable and valuable to mainstream sociology. Economists are not interested in representing reality, but in constructing models that simplify reality to isolate mechanisms that account for observed phenomena. Economists have a distinctive epistemic culture, sustained by the discourse through which they talk and think about their work. This discourse mediates the relationship between the mathematical models they devise and the economic phenomena to which they apply. This study reveals economists' culture based on in-depth interviews with academic economists and an ethnographic study of economic departments in Israel. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides an account of the origins and formation of the UK Research Councils’ Rural Economy and Land Use (RELU) programme and its approach to promoting interdisciplinary working between social and natural scientists. The programme is set in the context of broader developments in science policy, including a policy discourse centred upon sustainable development and the knowledge economy and associated demands for greater accountability in science. Interdisciplinarity promises research that will be more relevant and responsive to public needs and concerns. In describing the provenance of the RELU programme, therefore, the paper seeks to lay out the different stages in its initiation and design to show how, to varying degrees, these were open to external scrutiny and influence. The process of developing the programme illustrates that it is not straightforward to make research agendas and funding more transparent and accountable. It also provides insights into the challenges that interdisciplinarity and accountability present to established science institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the attainment of economic salvation in a subtle society. As alleged, many social scientists had attempted to resolve it, including Milton Friedman whose proposal is centered on the harmonization of higher material standard of living with individual freedom and Gary Becker who touches closer to the nerve of social concern. However, it is still said that salvation could be attained through conventional improvements in efficiency of productive process by the next economists.

The article presents the author's effort to address the issue of commutative justice within the context of the morality of the freedom to persuade that is central to a market-based economic system. The author intends to demonstrate that there can be something morally problematic about certain persuasive activities that lie at the core of market economies. Various economists and philosophers, such as John Kenneth Galbraith, Frederick Hayek and Cass Sunstein, have touched upon this issue. No thinkers can deny that unmitigated market forces can have negative effects in certain cases.

In recent years social economists have been utilizing a broader than conventional perspective for examining the behavior of economic agents. While traditionally the focus has been on the one-dimensional maximizing “individual with this newer approach the focus is on the multidimensional “person.” Thus the name “Personalist Economics.” Long ago the British writer Thomas Carlyle devoted volumes of pages to the sorts of topics and issues that are prominent in the personalist approach. Here are explored some areas of overlap between Carlyle's and today's personalist perspective, and some questions that might be raised about the two approaches. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

George J. Stigler's seminal role as one of the founders of the economics of science is summarized and evaluated. His main contribution rests in his asking an array of important questions and arguing persuasively for the application of empirical, and especially statistical, techniques to the answering of those questions. He asks whether and how science progresses; whether a scientist's biography is important in understanding his science; what characteristics of a scientist are most complementary to success in science; and how the professionalization of science redirects the attention of scientists more toward internal puzzle-solving, and less toward applied relevance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article expounds on the economic views of the late economist Peter Bauer. Bauer was known for his courage in relying on simple verities like the poor's ability for self-sustenance and growth without the interference of the government. Relative success of some societies attributed to institutional frameworks, in Bauer's observation, was a historical incident.