In Economics Imperialism and Interdisciplinarity: Before the Watershed, Ben Fine offers a selection of his key articles charting the rise of economics imperialism. Each article is accompanied by a preamble that sets the context in which it appeared, with an overall introduction drawing out the overall significance for contemporary scholarship. Ranging over mainstream and heterodox economics, the disputes between them, the relationship between economics and other disciplines, and thinkers as diverse as Kuhn, Becker and Bourdieu, the collection offers a unique and compelling account of how mainstream economics has both changed dramatically whilst its core and narrow principles have remained as sacrosanct as they are invalid. The volume is imperative for those engaging in political economy across the social sciences.

In Economics Imperialism and Interdisciplinarity: The Watershed and After, Ben Fine selects and adds to his key articles tracking economics imperialism through three phases, focusing on the last decade of the third phase – anything goes as with freakonomics. Each article is accompanied by a preamble setting the context in which it appeared, with a new overall introduction and literature survey drawing out the overall significance for contemporary scholarship. Ranging over mainstream and heterodox economics, the disputes between them, the relationship between economics and other disciplines, and authors such as Lazear, Stiglitz and Akerlof, the accelerating presence of economics imperialism is documented alongside its perverse, critical neglect. The volume is imperative for those engaging in political economy across the social sciences.

In Cliometrics as Economics Imperialism, Ben Fine traces the cliometric revolution, from before its emergence through three phases of the new, the newer and the newest economic history. These phases are shown to correspond to those of “economics imperialism”, the colonisation of topics and fields by mainstream economics, moving successively through as if there were perfectly working markets, as if imperfectly working markets, and these combined plus arbitrary inclusion of other variables. The text draws upon case studies, for example of the putative eighteenth-century consumer revolution, Douglass North, path dependence, and the British coal industry, and through exposing the reduction of economic theory and economic history deployed within them and giving rise to a corresponding reduction in the presence of the social, the historical and political economy.

Drawing on political economy and economic pluralism, this book explores issues in sustainable economic development from a macro perspective. In contrast to the vast majority of studies on contemporary development problems, which are focused on micro-level theory, method, and policy, this volume brings together both heterodox and mainstream perspectives. The international cast of contributors thus brings a pluralistic approach to core contemporary topics including digital transformation, climate change, degrowth and the effects of the pandemic crisis. Methods range from frameworks used to analyse public policy and institutional change, to modes of analyses including historically grounded narratives and conceptualisations of grand theories. Each chapter surveys the origins, development, key features, applications, and frontiers of a particular viewpoint, framework, or mode of analysis. This book makes a vital contribution to the literature on economic development, sustainable development, capitalism, and sustainability more broadly.

In Economics Imperialism and Interdisciplinarity: Before the Watershed, visionary economist Ben Fine offers a selection of his key articles charting the rise of economics imperialism. Each article is accompanied by a preamble that sets the context in which it appeared, providing an overall introduction that draws out the lasting significance for contemporary scholarship. Ranging over mainstream and heterodox economics, the disputes between them, the relationship between economics and other disciplines, and thinkers as diverse as Kuhn, Becker and Bourdieu, the collection offers a unique and compelling account of how mainstream economics has both changed dramatically while its core and narrow principles have remained as sacrosanct as they are invalid. Economics Imperialism is imperative for those engaging in political economy across the social sciences.

In Economics Imperialism and Interdisciplinarity: The Watershed and After, visionary economist Ben Fine selects and adds to his key articles tracking economics imperialism through three phases, with a special focus on the last decade of the third phase--anything goes as with freakonomics. Each article is accompanied by a preamble that sets the context in which it appeared, providing an overall introduction that draws out the lasting significance for contemporary scholarship. This volume ranges over mainstream and heterodox economics, the disputes between them, the relationship between economics and other disciplines, and discusses authors such as Edward Lazear, Joseph Stiglitz and George Akerlof. Through careful analysis the accelerating presence of economics imperialism is documented alongside its perverse, critical neglect. Economics Imperialism and Interdisciplinarity is imperative for those engaging in political economy across the social sciences.

Shows how economics was once rich, diverse, multidimensional and pluralistic. Details how political economy became economics through the desocialisation and dehistoricisation of the dismal science.

Best-selling books such as Freakonomics and The Undercover Economist have paved the way for the flourishing economics-made-fun genre. While books like these present economics as a strong and explanatory science, the ongoing economic crisis has exposed the shortcomings of economics to the general public. In the face of this crisis, many people, including well-known economists such as Paul Krugman, have started to express their doubts about whether economics is a success as a science. As well as academic papers, newspaper columns with a large audience have discussed the failure of economic to predict and explain ongoing trends. The emerging picture is somewhat confusing: economics-made-fun books present economics as a method of thinking that can successfully explain everyday and "freaky" phenomena. On the other hand, however, economics seems to fail in addressing and explaining the most pressing matters related to the field of economics itself. This book explores the confusion created by this contradictory picture of economics. Could a science that cannot answer its own core questions really be used to explain the logic of everyday life? This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Economic Methodology.