Value judgments and economics expertise

Antoinette Baujard

No 1314, Working Papers from Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique Lyon St-Étienne (GATE Lyon St-Étienne), Université de Lyon

Abstract: This paper tackles the problem of the demarcation of value judgments in economic expertise. Is it possible to disentangle values from facts, or neutral scientific assertions from value-laden judgments, in the context of economic expertise ? If not, why not ? And if it is, under what conditions ? First, drawing on concepts from analytic philosophy, the paper highlights the interdependencies between descriptive, evaluative, and prescriptive judgments. Second, drawing notably on social studies of science, the paper proposes a definition of ‘expertise’, and translates this into a list of successive stages wherein these different types of judgments are involved. A backward analysis of these stages is provided in order to identify where values stand, and who holds them. Third, reconsidering the positions of neutrality in economics (Mongin 2006), the paper defends the ‘weak non-neutrality’ view in the context of expertise, and concludes with reflections on what could be done to address the problem of democratic legitimacy raised by the difficulty of demarcation.

Keywords: methodology; value judgments; prescription; evaluation; recommendation; expertise; neutrality; demarcation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A13 B41 D63 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2013
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (14)

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ftp://ftp.gate.cnrs.fr/RePEc/2013/1314.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Value judgment and economics expertise (2015)
Working Paper: Value judgments and economics expertise (2015)
Working Paper: Value judgments and economics expertise (2014)
Working Paper: Value judgment and economics expertise (2014)
Working Paper: Value judgment and economics expertise (2014)
Working Paper: Value judgments and economics expertise (2013)
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