Economists have, for more than a century, portrayed economics as a physics-like discipline concerned with explaining the underlying mechanics of an amoral market system, presumed to be driven by self-interest and competition. Drawing on feminist work in economics, this paper will examine the binary, hierarchical gender metaphors underlying these claims. It will then explore the damage these biased beliefs have done to the creation of knowledge and to our ability to deal with issues such as climate change and will suggest alternatives.

Property rights lie at the heart of economic analysis. In market economies, private property rights are central. This has not always been the case. In traditional or tribal societies, private property rights over resources are rare. Resources important to the life of the tribe are either held in common (as with a common grazing ground), or are not owned at all (as with animals hunted for food). Economically developed societies—we like to think of ourselves as “advanced” societies—have generally evolved elaborate systems of property rights covering most resources as well as most goods and services. But even modern industrialized nations have resources, goods, and services difficult to categorize as property. A free-flowing river is an example. If we think of the river simply as a quantity of water flowing past people’s land, we can devise rules for “ownership” of the water that allow a certain amount of water withdrawal per landowner. But what about the aquatic life of the river? What about the use of the river for recreation: canoeing, swimming, and fishing? What about the scenic beauty of the riverside? Some of these aspects of the river might also become specific types of property. For example, in Scotland trout-fishing rights on certain rivers are jealously guarded property. CHAPTER 4 CHAPTER FOCUS QUESTIONS

A recent study presents compelling statistical evidence that the preferences of wealthy Americans are overwhelmingly represented in their government, compared with those of the middle classes. By contrast, the preferences of the poorest people demonstrate no statistical impact on the voting patterns of their elected officials. If this trend continues, public policies will most likely reproduce the conditions that are worsening economic inequality and political marginalization. 36 . . .

In this chapter, you will be introduced to a fairly standard examination of the National Income and Product Accounts (the NIPA), but with a “contextual” flavor. You will learn that the accounts have been created for specific purposes. The chapter explains what has been included in the measurement of the GDP, and what has been excluded. The chapter highlights how the production and investment undertaken in the “household and institutions” and government sectors have historically been deemphasized in national accounting, and how these have been completely ignored in common abstract representations of the macroeconomy. You will learn how economic growth, nominal GDP, real GDP, price indices, and national saving are commonly measured. You will also be introduced to the simple representations of the components of GDP that are deployed in the traditional macroeconomic model.

To commemorate 40 years since the founding of the Journal of Business Ethics, the editors in chief of the journal have invited the editors to provide commentaries on the future of business ethics. This essay comprises a selection of commentaries aimed at creating dialogue around the theme The Ethics and Politics of Academic Knowledge Production. Questions of who produces knowledge about what, and how that knowledge is produced, are inherent to editing and publishing academic journals. At the Journal of Business Ethics, we understand the ethical responsibility of academic knowledge production as going far beyond conventions around the integrity of the research content and research processes. We are deeply aware that access to resources, knowledge of the rules of the game, and being able to set those rules, are systematically and unequally distributed. One could ask the question "for whom is knowledge now ethical'"? (See the Burrell commentary.) We have a responsibility to address these inequalities and open up our journal to lesser heard voices, ideas, and ways of being. Our six commentators pursue this through various aspects of the ethics and politics of academic knowledge production. Working with MacIntyre's scheme of practices and institutions, Andrew West provides commentary on the internal good of business ethics learning and education. Inviting us to step out of the cave, Christopher Michaelson urges a clear-eyed, unblinking focus on the purposes and audiences of business ethics scholarship. As developmental editor, Scott Taylor uncovers some of the politics of peer review with the aim of nurturing of unconventional research. Mike Hyman presents his idiosyncratic view of marketing ethics. In the penultimate commentary, Julie Nelson attributes difficulties in the academic positioning of the Business Ethics field to the hegemony of a masculine-centric model of the firm. And finally, Gibson Burrell provides a powerful provocation to go undercover as researcher-investigators in a parallel ethics of the research process.

ABSTRACT Knowledge-making is a social activity. In this essay, I discuss how the economics discipline may be becoming a bit more cognizant of this fact, even though it goes against a long habit of imagining objectivity to be something attainable by lone (traditionally male) researchers. One promising recent development is the increasing attention being paid to community checks on empirical work in the form of meta-analysis, pre-registered studies, and replication. Another is the recent effort towards professional diversity and inclusion undertaken by leaders of the American Economic Association. To illustrate the importance of these two initiatives, I give an example of how community checks and inclusion of an historically marginalized perspective have exposed biases in previous – supposedly ‘rigorous’ – empirical behavioral economics research. Yet the acknowledgement that knowledge-making is social needs to expand further, into influencing not only how work, but what we work on, and what we work for.

This chapter explores the separative/soluble habit of thought and describes how analysis of our economic lives can be transformed, deepened, and made more rigorous when its simplistic categories are resisted. Economists' own self-image, as well as our image of the "economic agent," has tended to follow a separative ideal. Economists often think of ourselves as rigorous, tough researchers whose scientific stature and claims to objectivity are based on our use of the precise and value-free language of mathematics. Workers are portrayed as separative when negotiating their contract with an employer, but once employed tend to be portrayed as soluble, simply becoming hands that carry out the decisions of their employer. Firms are portrayed as separative agents as they make their (presumed) profit-maximizing decisions but then become soluble, with no decisions to be made, when faced with competitive markets.