Ethics And the Market: Insights from Social Economics

Comprising cutting-edge work on the state of social economics today, this theoretically diverse book includes strong emphasis on the role of ethics, morality, identity, and society in economic theorizing.

Much existing economic theory overlooks ethics. Rather than situating the market and values at separate extremes of a continuum, Ethics and the Market contends that the two are necessarily and intimately related. This volume brings together some of the best work in the social economics tradition, with strong contributions and pedagogy, and a cross-national blend of economics, philosophy, and policy. The contributors embed the economic within the social, rather than viewing 'the economy' and 'society' as separable spheres of life activity, and in so doing, three key themes are illuminated, corresponding to the volume's tripartite structure:

• Morality and Markets
• Redefining the Boundaries of Economics
• Social Economics in Transition.

Ethics and the Market illuminates the diverse and dynamic theoretical approaches that are employed in social economics, reflecting on their continuously evolving relationship with neoclassical economics. Taking an innovative approach, this integrative book challenges traditional ways of thinking, and will prove vital reading for students and academics in the fields of Economics, Sociology, Gender Studies, and Public Policy.

Betsy Jane Clary is Professor of Economics at the College of Charleston in South Carolina, USA.Wilfred Dolfsma is both an economist and philosopher and is affiliated with Erasmus University Rotterdam and Maastricht University, the Netherlands. Deborah M. Figart is Dean of Graduate Studies at The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey, USA.