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HANDBOOK OF SOCIAL ECONOMICS
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Social economics is the study, with the methods of economics, of social phenomena in which aggregates affect individual choices.1 Such phenomena include, just to mention a few, social norms and conventions, cultural identities and stereotypes, peer and neighbor- hood effects.
A central underpinning of the methods of economics is methodological individualism. In particular, explanations based solely on group choice are unusual and aggregates are generally studied as the result of individual choices. Furthermore, the methods of economics rely mostly, although not exclusively, on a rational choice paradigm. Social economics is to be distinguished therefore from Economic sociology, which may be thought of as the study, with the methods of sociology, of economic phenomena, e.g., markets. Although there is increasing overlap in these areas of study as it is quite evident in some of the chapters that follow, they are still quite complementary.
The aim of this handbook is to illustrate the intellectual vitality and richness of the recent literature in social economics by organizing its main contributions in a series of surveys. Any organization of this literature is somewhat arbitrary. Social economics, for instance, does not lend itself naturally to a classic distinction along the theory/ empirical work line, as concepts and measurements are often developed in tight connection with each other. We have chosen instead to distinguish three subfields, which we call Social preferences, Social actions, and Peer and neighborhood effects
JESS BENHABIB ALBERTO BISIN and MATTHEW O. JACKSON - Personal Name
1st Edtion
978-0-444-53713-3
NONE
HANDBOOK OF SOCIAL ECONOMICS
Economics
English
Elsevier B.V.
2011
USA
1-933
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