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Abstract:
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"A small but a growing band of creative scholars, who labor in various (often loosely defined) branches of the social sciences (such as economic history, theory of the firm, industrial organization, property rights economics, economics of law, economics of information, positive political science, rational choice sociology, and anthropology), have laid the foundation of a new social science of wealth. The scholars have generalized the traditional economic approach (i) by extending the level of explanation and individual rationality into new spheres and (ii) by incorporating various issues bearing on knowledge and information. These (mainly uncoordinated) scholarly developments are only the first step on a long journey toward a general theoretical approach to economic systems and their dynamics. Below, I discuss some ideas of where we should be heading � where students of economic systems are likely to find high intellectual rates of return on their investments, but not necessarily the key to a rapid promotion in academia."
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