Title:	Social Welfare Functions and Development
Authors:	Nanak Kakwani Hyun Hwa Son
Keywords:	Development
Issue Date:	2016
Publisher:	Palgrave Macmillan
Description:	In a recent article entitled “Making sense of economists’ positive‒normative distinction” Colander and Su (2015) argue that John Stuart Mill held the view that economists should not give advice on policy when that advice is only based on the theorems drawn from economics. In Mill’s words (1844, 1967, p. 312), which are cited by Colander and Su, “[science] deals in facts, [art] in precepts. Science is a collection of truths; art a body of rules, or directions for conduct. Th e language of science is, Th is is, or, Th is is not; Th is does, or does not, happen. Th e language of art is, Do this; Avoid that. Science takes cognizance of a phenomenon, and endeavours to discover its law; art proposes to itself an end, and looks out for means to eff ect it.” Th is contrast between science and art clearly reminds us of the distinction between positive and normative economics. Colander and Su (2015) emphasize also the fact that John Neville Keynes (1890, 1917, pp. 35 and 36), the father of John Maynard Keynes, took a position similar to that of Mill. For J. N. Keynes economic enquiries should be classifi ed into three diff erent departments. Th e fi rst one refers to the positive science of political economy and aims at establishing economic uniformities. Th e second one corresponds to what could be called the normative science of political economy whose purpose is to determine economic ideals. Th e third one fi nally could be called the art of political economy and its goal is to formulate economic precepts. Arthur Cecil Pigou (1920, 2013) had somehow the same kind of “Weltanschauung”. He started his famous book, Th e Economics of Welfare , by writing that “when a man sets out any course of inquiry, the object of his research may be either light or fruit—either knowledge for its own sake or knowledge for the sake of good things to which it leads.” Referring afterwards to economics Pigou adds that “…It is open to us to construct an economic science either of the pure type represented by pure mathematics or of the realistic type represented by experimental physics…Contrasted with this pure science stands realistic economics, the interest of which is concentrated upon the world in experience…”.
URI:	http://10.6.20.12:80/handle/123456789/54254
ISBN:	978-1-137-58325-3
Appears in Collections:	Population Studies

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