The Oxford Handbook of Professional Economic Ethics (Oxford Handbooks)

For over a century the economics profession has extended its reach to encompass policy formation and institutional design while largely ignoring the ethical challenges that attend the profession’s influence over the lives of others. Economists have proven to be disinterested in ethics. Embracing emotivism, they often treat ethics a matter of mere preference. Moreover, economists tend to be hostile to professional economic ethics, which they incorrectly equate with a code of conduct that would be at best ineffectual and at worst disruptive to good economic practice. But good ethical reasoning is not reducible to mere tastes, and professional ethics is not reducible to a code. Instead, professional economic ethics refers to a new field of investigation-a tradition of sustained and lively inquiry into the irrepressible ethical entailments of academic and applied economic practice. The Oxford Handbook of Professional Economic Ethics explores a wide range of questions related to the nature of ethical economic practice and the content of professional economic ethics. It explores current thinking that has emerged in these areas while widening substantially the terrain of economic ethics. There has never been a volume that poses so directly and intensively the question of the need for and content of professional ethics for economics. The Handbook incorporates the work of leading scholars and practitioners, including academic economists from various theoretical traditions; applied economists, beyond academia, whose work has direct and immense social impact; and philosophers, professional ethicists, and others whose work has addressed the nature of "professionalism" and its implications for ethical practice. Oxford Handbook of Professional Economic Ethics - Oxford Handbooks 2 Dedication 4 Contents 5 Foreword 9 Acknowledgments 13 Contributors 14 Part I Introduction 21 Introduction, or Why This Handbook 21 Part II Uncertainty, Risk and Professional Economic Ethics 30 Skin-in-the-Game Heuristic for Protection Against Tail Events 30 Ethics of Economic Decision Rules 48 In Praise of Imperfect Commitment 76 “Econogenic Harm” 92 Part III The Ethical Nature of Economic Practice 122 About Doing the Right Thing as an Academic Economist 122 Social Responsibility of Economists 138 Ethical Economist 160 Part IV The Ethical Entailments of Economic Theory 190 1. General Issues 190 Ethics in Relation to Economics, Ecology, and Eschatology 190 Poisoning the Well, or How Economic Theory Damages Moral Imagination 204 Economists’ Odd Stand on the Positive–Normative Distinction 223 Complex Ethical Consequences of “Simple” Theoretical Choices 242 Good, Evil, and Economic Practice 251 2. Economic Theory and the Great Recession 268 Alternative Ethical Perspectives on the Financial Crisis 268 Economists’ Ethics in the Build-Up to the Great Recession 287 Part V Ethical Issues in Economic Research 314 1. Experimental Economics 314 Ethics and Advances in Economic Science 314 Meaning of Deceive in Experimental Economic Science 337 2. Econometrics 348 Honesty and Integrity in Econometrics 348 Lady Justice Versus Cult of Statistical Significance 373 3. Field Research 386 Balancing Risk and Benefit 386 Conducting Ethical Economic Research 421 Unprincipled Randomization Principle in Economics and Medicine 442 4. Conflict of Interest 477 Professional Disequilibrium 477 Considerations on Conflict of Interest in Academic Economics 491 Part VI Ethical Issues in Applied Economics 502 1. Development 502 Ethics, Economic Advice, and Economic Policy 502 Neoclassical Economics as the New Social Engineering 525 Ethics of Economic Development and Human Displacement 541 How Can We Better Address the Gaps in our Knowledge about Development Effectiveness 566 2. Economic Advising in Government and Beyond 594 Confessions of a Policy Analyst 594 Ethics and the Government Economist 624 Ethics Problem 641 First Tell No Untruth 657 3. Forensic Economics 675 Ethical Issues in Forensic Economics 675 Part VII Ethical Issues in Economic Education 701 Exposure and Dialogue Programs in the Training of Development Analysts and Practitioners 701 Ethics and Learning in Undergraduate Economics Education 719 Part VIII Looking Ahead 742 Creating Humble Economists 742 Codes of Ethics for Economists, Pluralism, and the Nature of Economic Knowledge 755 Author Index 770 978–0–19–976663–5,The,Oxford,Handbook,of,Professional,Economic,Ethics 978–0–19–976663–5 The Oxford Handbook of Professional Economic Ethics For more than a century, the economics profession has extended its reach to encompass policy formation and institutional design while largely ignoring the ethical challenges that attend the profession’s influence over the lives of others. Economists have proved to be disinterested in ethics, which, embracing emotivism, they often treat as a matter of preference, and hostile to professional economic ethics, which they incorrectly equate with a code of conduct that would be at best ineffectual and at worst disruptive to good economic practice. But good ethical reasoning is not reducible to mere tastes, and professional ethics is not reducible to a code. Instead, professional economic ethics refers to a new field of investigation—a tradition of sustained inquiry into the irrepressible ethical entailments of academic and applied economic practice. The risks and costs of establishing the field are real, but a profession that purports to enhance social welfare cannot avoid them. This volume brings together leading figures in economics, professional ethics, and other relevant fields to explore questions related to the nature of ethical economic practice and the adoption and content of professional economic ethics. It explores current thinking that has emerged in these areas while widening substantially the terrain of inquiry into economic ethics. Edited By George F. Demartino And Deirdre N. Mccloskey. Includes Bibliographical References And Index.