Philosophy of Economics Jurgen¨ Landes juergen
[email protected] jlandes.wordpress.com Room 129 Winter Term 2017 Summary We all are economic actors and exchange goods or services for money on a daily basis. In this course we will look at basic philosophical questions relating to economics. We shall be interested in - among other topics - rational actions and rational actor models, human well-being and game theory. Assessment REGISTRATION FOR EXAMS AND TERM PAPERS IN THE CURRENT WIN- TER TERM: Please, register for this course via the LSF system by FEBRUARY 9, 2018. Assessment: 50% presentation, 50% essay. Topic of presentation and essay are chosen by the student. It makes sense to present and write on the same topic. Presentations are mainly assessed with respect to the communication of ideas / concepts / arguments. Please format as .pdf-files. Deadline for essay submission: Friday, 16. Mar. 2018. No references = No marks = FAIL. Essays should be around 10 pages (20,000 characters), clearly structured, contain a well-argued for original philosophical claim, and refer to relevant literature. 1 When sending the essay please also provide instructions how your grades are recorded (email to a coordinator, paper certificate, online system, etc.). An essay is submitted, AFTER I confirm the receipt via email. After I confirm the submission, it will still take me some time before I read and graded your work. 2 Week by Week Week 1: Introduction Suggested Readings: Any introduction on the philosophy of economics, e.g., [Reiss, 2013, Chapters 1 & 8]. Week 2: Decision Making a` la Savage – Rational Actions Suggested Readings: Savage[1972], SEP on Decision Theory, Section 1 of SEP on Descriptive Decision Theory, http://www.econ2.jhu.edu/people/Karni/savageseu.pdf.