The Future of Economics

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The Future of Economics
Economics as it is today, has certainly achieved a high level of technical
sophistication and methodological rigor due to a consistent application
of heuristic assumptions, such as t he maximizing rationality t hesis or
methodological individualism, and a generalized and accurate mathematical
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excessive cost this methodological coherence might involve for science and for
reality itself. The loss of perspective, an excessive unilateralism and the lack of
flexibility before a complex and changeable reality, evidenced by many of the
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considered.
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crisis, over the last years some signs that seem to lead to a broader reflection,
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Economy: individual values, human pursuits, self-realization and becoming”, in
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took the initiative of stepping aside for a moment from the urgency of the
crisis to think about the problem that affects economics in its fundamental
principles and in its mode of approach to reality. It is also noticeable that these
economists did not isolate themselves, but risked to engage in an open dialogue
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scope economic thinking might achieve in the future.
#PQVJGTUKIPQHCRQUUKDNGEJCPIGEQOGUHTQOThe Institute for New Economic
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out the Center for the History of Political EconomyNGFD[$TWEG%CNFYGNNCVVJG
Duke University and the Research Program in Economic History, directed by Barry
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In this spirit, the papers in this issue of Cultura Económica go further in the
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the capacity to raise questions not only about the most efficient means to achieve
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entrepreneurs and all the other economic agents aim for. This exigency – that
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enough to insert their vision, analyses and recommendations into the broader
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both disciplines, neoclassical economics, preeminent in the decades before the
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from utilitarian ethical thinking – have multiple normative assumptions. In
this sense, the Danish Professor suggests to make explicit the normative ethical
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concepts, such as utility, preferences or competition, can be related to ethical
and social concepts as necessity, freedom and cooperation, in order to achieve
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policy proposals.
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neoclassical paradigm, edified on an attractive mathematical formalism, have
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underlying anthropological concepts and its method. In the end, it is necessary
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evolution of the concept of the firm from the static and exogenous perspective
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In this sense, this issue of Cultura Económica intends to make a contribution
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%*
Revista Cultura Económica
9