ABSTRACT
This chapter of the handbook reconsiders and elaborates the contemporary proposal for economic science as sociological economics as distinct from an application of physics and other hard science. It also reexamines the ground for the proposal, the strong effect of social factors such as institutions on the economy, including the market. It first redefines sociological economics in view of its explicit or implicit definitions and its view as a social science in parts of economics. Then it identifies and discusses conceptions of economics as being inherently or primarily sociological economics or its proxies like social and institutional economics. This is followed by identifying conceptions of sociological economics viewed as a particular branch of economics. The chapter also specifies and discusses certain branches and equivalents or proxies of economics. It concludes that sociological economics represents a significant part of both early and contemporary economics and substantively merges or converges with economic sociology within the social sciences.
