ABSTRACT

Economic Methodology, History and Pluralism: Expanding Economic Thought to Meet Contemporary Challenges pays tribute to Emeritus Professor Sheila Dow (University of Stirling, Scotland). This volume focusses on the contributions of Dow to economic methodology, pluralism and the history of economic thought. These explorations serve to underpin her ideas and theories on macroeconomics, banking and money.

Bringing together an impressive panel of contributors, the chapters in this work examine Dow’s writings on structured pluralism and schools of thought, meanings of open and closed systems, reflections on the relationship between economics and other sciences (both social and natural), the methodology of behavioural economics, as well as the political economy of the Scottish school of thought. The book challenges the foundations of the mainstream economics paradigm in a novel and holistic manner, seeking to advance thinking across Dow’s favoured discipline.

The essays in this collection provide thought-provoking reading for advanced students and scholars of economic methodology, the history of economic thought, heterodox economics and political economy. The book will also be valued by the economics profession at large, as it contains important elements and ideas concerning ethics, methodology and tolerance within economics as a discipline and as a profession.

chapter |11 pages

Introduction

Sheila Dow as a visionary economics scholar

chapter 1|19 pages

The relation of neoclassical economics to other disciplines

The case of physics and psychology 1

chapter 3|13 pages

Categorisation, criticism and pluralism in context

Open and closed systems and the project of mathematical modelling in modern economics

chapter 4|16 pages

Dualism revisited

chapter 8|18 pages

Dow, Keynes and the pragmatic tradition

More in common?

chapter 9|12 pages

Keynes in transition

‘The Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren’ 1

chapter 10|15 pages

Ethical practice in economics

Research, policy advice and education

chapter 11|18 pages

Sheila Dow as historian of economic thought

The Scottish political economy tradition

chapter 13|13 pages

Mary Theresa Rankin

A monetary economist in the Scottish tradition of political economy