WELFARE THEORY, PUBLIC ACTION, AND ETHICAL VALUES
This innovative history of welfare economics challenges the view that welfare economics can be discussed without taking ethical values into account. Whatever their theoretical commitments, when economists have considered practical problems relating to public policy, they have adopted a wider range of ethical values, whether equality, justice, freedom, or democracy.
Even canonical authors in the history of welfare economics are shown to have adopted ethical positions different from those with which they are commonly associated. Welfare Theory, Public Action, and Ethical Values explores the reasons and implications of this, drawing on concepts of welfarism and non-welfarism developed in modern welfare economics. The authors exemplify how economic theory, public affairs, and political philosophy interact, challenging the status quo in order to push economists and historians to reconsider the nature and meaning of welfare economics.Roger E. Backhouse is Professor of History and Philosophy of Economics at the University of Birmingham and endowed Professor of Methodology and History of Economics at Erasmus University Rotterdam.
Antoinette Baujard is Professor of Economics at the University of Lyon and Jean Monnet University at Saint-Etienne.
Tamotsu Nishizawa is Professor of Economics at Teikyo University, Japan.