Welfare Theory, Public Action, and Ethical Values
Revisiting the History of Welfare Economics

This volume revisits the history of welfare economics, showing that economists have regularly drawn on ethical values for practical issues.

Roger E. Backhouse (Edited by), Antoinette Baujard (Edited by), Tamotsu Nishizawa (Edited by)

9781108841450, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 25 March 2021

300 pages
23.5 x 15.8 x 2.1 cm, 0.64 kg

'… an intellectually deep and richly detailed edited collection that will be found rewarding by intellectual historians, philosophers of methodology in economics, and welfare economists alike.' Matthew D. Adler, The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought

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.

Introduction: revisiting the history of welfare economics Roger E. Backhouse, Antoinette Baujard and Tamotsu Nishizawa
Part I. Plurality of Welfare in the Making of Welfare Economics: 1. Ruskin's romantic triangle: neither wealth nor beauty but life Yuichi Shionoya
2. Radicalism versus Ruskin: quality and quantity in Hobson's welfare economics Peter Cain
3. Alfred Marshall on progress and human wellbeing Tamotsu Nishizawa
4. Pigou's welfare economics revisited: a non-welfarist and non-utilitarian interpretation Satoshi Yamazaki
5. To which kind of welfare did Léon Walras refer? The theorems and the state Richard Arena
6. Value judgement within Pareto's economic and sociological approaches to welfare Rogerio Arthmar and Michael McClure
Part II. Developing Modern Welfare Economics: 7. John Hicks's farewell to economic welfarism: how deeply rooted and far reaching is his Non-Welfarist Manifesto? Kotaro Suzumura
8. Individualism and ethics: Paul Samuelson's welfare economics Roger E. Backhouse
9. Non welfarism in the early debates over the Coase theorem: the case of environmental economics Steven Medema
10. Richard Musgrave and the idea of community Maxime Desmarais-Tremblay
11. Non-welfaristic features of Kenneth Arrow's ideas of justice Nao Saito
12. Beyond welfarism: the potential and limitations of the capability approach Constanze Binder
13. The influence of Sen's applied economics on his non-welfarist approach to justice: agency at the core of public action for removing injustices Muriel Gilardone
Conclusion Roger E. Backhouse, Antoinette Baujard, and Tamotsu Nishizawa.

Subject Areas: Economic history [KCZ], Welfare economics [KCR], Microeconomics [KCC], Economics [KC]