Comparisons in Economic Thought: Economic interdependency reconsidered

✍ Scribed by Stavros A. Drakopoulos

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 193
• Series: Routledge Studies in the History of Economics
• Edition: 1
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

The idea of comparing rewards with others has a long and persistent presence in the social sciences, and can be found in many psychological, social and managerial theories. In economics, this idea can be traced back through the works of a substantial number of eminent thinkers, from Genovesi and Hume, to Smith, Ricardo, Marx, and Mill, through to Veblen, Pigou, and Keynes.

In the last two decades the notion of social comparisons has started to appear more frequently in economic literature, especially in the subfield of happiness research. There are also signs that the notion has resurfaced in some strands of literature such as positional concerns, social identity models and social capital theory. Comparisons in Economic Thought offers a uniquely comprehensive account of how social comparisons have featured in the history of economic thought. This book provides an assessment as to why social comparisons have been dismissed by mainstream economists and considers their current and future usefulness.

This volume is suitable for those who are interested and study history of economic thought, economic methodology and History of Consumer Theory, as well as Rational Choice Theory.

✦ Table of Contents

Comparisons in Economic Thought- Front Cover
Comparisons in Economic Thought
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Contents
Preface and acknowledgments
Introduction
The presence of social comparisons
Forms of social comparisons
Book structure
Chapter 1: Social comparisons in other social sciences
Introduction
Leon Festinger’s social comparison theory
Equity theory
Relative deprivation theory
Other psychological theories involving comparisons
Biological, neurological, and anthropological evidence of comparisons
Conclusions
Chapter 2: Social comparisons in pre-classical and classical economic thought
Introduction
Social comparisons in pre-classical economic thought
Adam Smith, John Rae, and other classical economists
Nassau Senior and other major classical authors
Conclusions
Chapter 3: The marginalization of social comparisons
Introduction
Marginalism, Homo Economicus, and economic methodology
Vilfredo Pareto and positive economics
Alfred Marshall’s role
The trend towards an “objective” choice theory
Paul Samuelson’s axiomatization
Conclusions
Chapter 4: The reappearance of social comparisons
Introduction
Thorstein Veblen: emulation and conspicuous consumption
A. C. Pigou and the role of “other consumers”
John Maynard Keynes’s relative real wages
James Duesenberry and the relative consumption hypothesis
Reactions towards the relative consumption function
Behavioural economics and Harvey Leibenstein
Tibor Scitovsky and social status
Fred Hirsch’s positional economy
John Kenneth Galbraith and the dependence effect
Conclusions
Chapter 5: Social comparisons in microeconomics
Introduction
The attempt to incorporate interdependency in mainstream consumer theory
Further recent attempts to incorporate interdependency
Signs of recent revival of social comparisons
Positional concerns: concept and historical background
Contemporary treatment of positionalities
Empirical indications and policy implications of positional concerns
Social identity models
Amartya Sen: goals and commitment
Social capital theory
New behavioural economics and social preferences
Conclusions
Chapter 6: Social comparisons: welfare, macroeconomics, and labour economics
Introduction
Welfare economics and interdependence
Social comparisons in macroeconomics
Wage comparisons in labour economics
Early institutionalist labour economics and Arthur Ross
Dominance of mainstream labour economics
Reintroduction of comparisons and Dan Hamermesh
Labour economics: developments in the 1980s and 1990s
The comparison wage in trade unions’ utility: an example
Conclusions
Chapter 7: Social comparisons and subjective well-being
Introduction
Job satisfaction as an economic variable
Pay level comparisons and job satisfaction
Wage targets and job satisfaction
Social status, signalling, and rank effects
The rise of happiness research
Happiness as a concept
Happiness and income
The happiness paradox
Main explanations of the paradox
Relative standing and the happiness paradox
Testing relative standing
Conclusions
Chapter 8: Methodological issues
Introduction
Part 1: the resilience of Homo Economicus and the prevalence of selfish and asocial preferences
Part 2: theoretical and economic policy consequences
Conclusions
Epilogue
References
Subject index
Name index