Responsible Economics and Policymaking

TINT - Centre for Philosophy of Social Science, in collaboration with the IRN project ("Justice and Interest") and the ESSK project (“Economics as Serviceable Social Knowledge”), is pleased to invite researchers to submit proposals for a workshop on Responsible Economics and Policymaking. The workshop will be held on-site at the University of Helsinki.

Economic models, evidence and expertise are used extensively in policy making, but the value and limits of economic knowledge in shaping worldviews and public policies need more critical scrutiny given the grand challenges currently facing the world, including climate change, biodiversity loss, pandemics, and growing inequalities, as well as the significant threats confronting democracies worldwide. This workshop will explore the philosophical questions concerning the serviceability of economics to society as a policy science. It will focus on institutional and ethical dimensions of economics, paying special attention to questions concerning interest, justice, and responsibility.

We welcome submissions on the following themes, broadly understood:

●      Economics in society: its impact and its responsibility

●      Role of responsibility in guiding economic behaviour and policy

●      Role of ideas, interests, and values in shaping economic models and policy.

●      Relation of economics to other sciences in policy making and policy advice

●      Economic expertise: its roles and its limits

●      Economics: issues in science communication and science advice

●      Responsible economic modelling and policy-making practices

●      The ethics of economic decision making in policy contexts

●      The economics of harm and the harm of economics

●      Epistemic (in)justice in economics and economic policy

●      Fairness in economics and economic policy

●      Institutional epistemology of economics