Democratizing the Economics Debate. Pluralism and Research Evaluation

Being an economist has become a quite fascinating profession. Alongside teaching, the economist’s job is to produce research and then translate it into policy guidance for governments and other public bodies. Under what seems to be a solid and monolithic armor, the body of the discipline shows several more or less hidden glitches. Anyone who wants to be honest about the scientific place of economics will agree that the subject suffers from identity issues, being located between the scientific ‘hardness’ of physics and the ‘softer’ discipline of philosophy. This new book analyses the ethical and practical aspects of how those identity issues impinge upon recent economic debate. The three sections of the book try to answer three fundamental questions about the evolution of economics as a discipline in terms of its teaching and research practices, its evaluation methods, and its relevance to policymaking.