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Over time, economics has experienced paradigm shifts, and there is every reason to think this will continue. In economics, as in the development of technological knowledge, paradigms do not emerge from nowhere, but build on precursors, possibly from other fields. Our understanding of current economic thinking can be enhanced by paying greater attention to the role of paradigms and by using concepts such as myth, plot structure, and cultural endowment, which are typically given greater attention by literary analysts than by economists, to study paradigms. Here we argue that together these can help us better understand how ideas from other times and fields may be combined with our own to generate better research and publications, and that a greater awareness of the history of economics may well be an excellent vehicle for enhancing that understanding.

Abstract Fashion is the quintessential post-modernist consumer practice, or so many hold. In this contribution, I argue that, on the contrary, fashion should be understood as a means of communicating [...]

Kor Grit (2) Wilfred Dolfsma (3) Abstract In this article, we analyze recent dynamics of the Dutch health care sector, a hybrid system of public, private and professional elements, in [...]

By Viviana A Zelizer. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997. 286 + xi pp. $14.95. Viviana Zelizer's new book, The Social Meaning of Money, is a next step in a personal [...]

An analysis of the consumer-electronic retailer relationship is presented. It is posited that consumers become dependent subcontractors based on transaction cost economics, as consumers invest more time and effort in constructing a relationship than do e-retailers, who only require generic customer data to manage prices and products.

The implications of the perspective that learning should combine reason, adaptation and volition for economics are analyzed. Learning is explained as a process that reduces competence difficulty gap by adopting suitable rules of conduct.

Abstract 'Knowledge' takes a central place in economics. This paper shows that the metaphor pervasively used in neoclassical economics to understand knowledge is that of 'capital'. Taking capital as a [...]

In the 18 years that John Davis has single-handedly edited the Review of Social Economy (ROSE), the journal has not only maintained its prominent position as a heterodox economics journal [...]

Only in recent times is attention from economists moving to the topic of consumption, even as Adam Smith claimed in his Wealth of Nations that consumption is the sole end [...]