The Economics of Economists

Alessandro Lanteri is Assistant Professor of Management in the Olayan School of Business at the American University of Beirut. His research rests at the border between economics, ethics and psychology and has appeared in the European Journal of the History of Economics Thought, Philosophical Quarterly, Philosophical Studies and the Journal of Business Ethics. Jack Vromen is Professor of Theoretical Philosophy at Erasmus University Rotterdam. He is also academic director of EIPE (Erasmus Institute for Philosophy and Economics). His research focuses on theoretical and meta-theoretical issues in economics and evolution. Recently he has also developed research interests in neuro-economics, in social mechanisms and in the popularizing 'Economics Made Fun' genre.

• Introduction Alessandro Lanteri and Jack Vromen; Part I. The Institutional Setting of Academic Economics: 1. The culture of academic economics Arjo Klamer; 2. The construction of a global profession: the transnationalization of economics Marion Fourcade; 3. Academic rankings between the 'Republic of Science' and 'New Public Management' Margit Osterloh and Bruno S. Frey; 4. Gatekeepers of economics: the network of editorial boards in economic journals Alberto Baccini and Lucio Barabesi; Part II. The Individual Incentives of Professional Economists: 5. Can European economics compete with US economics? And should it? David Colander; 6. Career patterns of economics PhDs: a decade of outcomes for the class of 1997 Wendy Stock and John Siegfried; 7. Scientific norms and the values of economists: the case of priority fights in economics Wade Hands; Part III. Challenges and Solutions: 8. Why economics is on the wrong track Deirdre McCloskey; 9. Do we try to teach our students too much? Robert Frank; 10. The perils of narrative teaching in economics Jack Vromen; 11. Academic women's careers in the social sciences Donna Ginther and Shulamit Kahn; 12. Ought (only) economists to defect? Stereotypes, identity and the prisoner's dilemma Alessandro Lanteri and Salvatore Rizzello; 13. The financial crisis and the systemic failure of academic economics David Colander, Hans Follmer, Armin Haas, Michael Goldberg, Katarina Juselius, Alan Kirman, Thomas Lux and Brigitte Sloth; Index.

'This is a very important and much-needed contribution to scholarship on the economics profession. Is there herding behavior in economics? Is the profession unable to address issues of fundamental concern on account of its social organization? These questions and many others are investigated in this very welcome volume.' John B. Davis, Marquette University, Wisconsin and Universiteit van Amsterdam