Economy and society

Teacher(s)

Duterme Tom; Ferreras Isabelle; Thiry Géraldine;

Language

French

Main themes

Firstly, starting from a given socio-economic problem, various sociological and economic analytical frameworks will be developed. Ideally, three or four distinct frameworks should be presented; in any case, two frameworks constitute the minimum number. The diversity of approaches should be real and marked, in order to achieve the course objective. For example, if a specific question within the field of social policies were chosen as a common problem, the instructors might develop how (a) new institutional economics, (b) the economics of conventions, (c) the neoclassical theory of contracts, or (d) economic sociology address this problem. In the second part, these different analytical frameworks would be compared to better understand their contributions and limitations, as well as their implications for the design of public policies.

Learning outcomes

At the end of this learning unit, the student is able to :
1	By the end of this course unit, students will be able to: The course "Economy and Society" is taught jointly by sociologists and economists. The objective of the course is to introduce students to the analysis of economic issues from an interdisciplinary perspective, specifically through the dialogue between the contributions of economics and sociology to the understanding of economic phenomena. Various paradigms or methodological approaches will be reviewed to make students aware of the plurality of perspectives and tools available for analysis. The course also aims to understand how the diversity of these analytical frameworks in contemporary societies influences the nature of public debate and concrete political decision-making processes. By the end of this course, students should be able to better grasp the specificities of different analytical frameworks and critically assess the contributions and limitations of the main approaches. This course is linked to the option "Economy, Society, and Socio-Ecological Transition," which provides a multidisciplinary perspective on economic phenomena.

Content

The course is taught in English.
Different analytical frameworks from sociology and economics will be developed. We will highlight the epistemological and methodological foundations of these frameworks and examine how they approach the same socio-economic issues (such as the conception of economic agents, markets, public action, and the state). The goal of this course is to introduce students to systematically evaluating the scope and implications of different social science approaches on various socio-economic phenomena. The analysis will focus on three specific themes: work, nature, and money. The methodology developed will enable students to apply these different analytical currents to these three socio-economic issues (work, nature, and money) to develop a pluralistic perspective on socio-economic facts and the resulting public policies.

Teaching methods

The main feature of this course will be its will to engage students as peers instructing one another. Advance readings have to be made prior to the session, and the dynamic of the class (some classes being online, others on site, cf. the course detailed schedule) will be as interactive as possible. You are expected to be willing to get actively involved during the class and make the required readings prior to it. If for any reason this is not an option for you, we recommend you not to take this course, or we urge you to come to discuss your concerns with the instructors.
This is especially important because the course is based on the readings, and on the students’ personal contributions to the discussion in class. This course is structured as a reading seminar in which students have maximal space for participation (as much as possible given the sanitary constraints). The instructors’ role will be to offer synthesis or clarification, but the material of the course will be built up from the readings and the discussions. This class is instructed in English as a way to offer you an opportunity in your curriculum to hold conceptual and intellectual discussion in English, more than to deal with technical problems and vocabulary. The course material is composed of the slides, and of the instructors’ notes, to be completed by your personal notes. This material should ease the task of those who fear not to be fully competent in English. A fully passive command of English is required in order to understand readings and discussions in class. A weaker active command is acceptable, reflected in the fact that the oral exam is offered in both English and French.

Evaluation methods

Students will be assessed on the basis of an oral exam at the end of the semester (offered in English and in French according to the student’s preference).

Other information

Prerequisite: Political Economics, basic course sociology
Course support: Reading Portfolio (available on Moodle)

Online resources

The course material is to be found on Moodle.

Bibliography

Cass R. Sunstein; Lucia A. Reisch, “Automatically Green: Behavioral Economics and Environmental Protection”, 38 Harv. Envtl. L. Rev. 127 (2014)
Ferreras, I., (2015), “What is work? Understanding the logic of work in the service-based democratic society”, Working Paper
Ferreras, I. (2019), Democratising Firms —A Cornerstone of Shared and Sustainable Prosperity, CUSP ESSAY SERIES #10
https://www.cusp.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/10-Democratising-firms-online.pdf
Frey C.B. et M.A. Osborne (2013), The future of employment: how susceptible are jobs to computerization?, Oxford Martin School Working Papers, September.
Martinache, I., Roman, P., & Thiry, G. (2019). Éditorial. Le paradigme comportemental, un nouvel impérialisme économique?. Revue française de socio-économie, (1), 7-17.
Phu Nguyen-van, Thi Kim Cuong Pham, (2019), “Environmental Incentives Over Time: From the First Forms of Regulation to the Recognition of Cognitive Biases”, in Ouvrard, B. and Stenger, A. (Eds.), Incentives and Environmental Policies: From Theory to Empirical Novelties, Jhon Wiley and Sons, 2019.
Soma, K, Vatn, A. (2014), “Representing the common goods – Stakeholders vs. Citizens”, Land Use Policy 41, p. 325-333.
Vandenberghe, V. (2012), “Are firms willing to employ a greying and feminizing workforce?”, Labour Economics 22, p. 30 – 46
Zografos, Ch., Howarth, R. (2010), “Deliberative Ecological Economics for Sustainability”, Sustainability 2, pp. 3399-3417.
Aglietta, M. (2018). Money. 5,000 Years of Debt and Power. Verso.
Lucas, R. E. (1972). Expectations and the neutrality of money. Journal of Economic Theory, 4(2), 103–124. https://doi.org/10.1016/0022-0531(72)90142-1
Kelton, S. (2020) The Deficit Myth: Modern Monetary Theory and the Birth of the People’s Economy. PublicAffairs.
Dodd, N. (1994). The Sociology of Money: Economics, Reason & Contemporary Society. Continuum Intl Pub Group
Mehrling, P. (2016). « Financial economics. » In Handbook on the History of Economic Analysis: 198-207.

Teaching materials

• les slides du cours, les notes de cours, et des articles scientifiques disponibles sur Moodle

Faculty or entity

> ECON