What is Socioeconomics? An Overview of Theories, Methods, and Themes in the Field

Abstract

The term socioeconomics is widely used, even though it is often connoted to quite divergent understandings about what it actually describes. It sometimes appears as an umbrella term for a range of quite successful but diverse and occasionally antagonistic approaches that cannot easily be combined. Sometimes it is applied to rather specific scientific endeavors. This paper is not conceptual, i.e., it concludes with some moderate considerations about optional ways to advance a consolidation of socioeconomics only. In first instance, it is intended to provide some orientation in the diverse field and discusses distinctions that can be made between major theoretical and methodological currents, subject areas, and understandings of the purpose of socioeconomics.

Keywords::

• Socioeconomics
• new economic sociology
• heterodox economics
• research paradigm

JEL classifications::

• B5 Current Heterodox Approaches
• A12 Relation of Economics to Other Disciplines
• A13 Relation of Economics to Social Values
• Z13 Economic Sociology
• Economic Anthropology
• Social and Economic Stratification

Notes

¹ Of course economics in principle and in most cases is pursued as a positive science, is concerned with the description and explanation of economic phenomena, and “is in principle independent of any particular ethical position or normative judgments” (Friedman, 1953). But positive economics can be used to derive normative implications. Most economists still identify normativity exclusively with ethics but this standard characterization is problematic for a number of reasons, most involving the idea that rational choice theory may itself be a normative theory: a normative theory of rational action. Orthodox neoclassical economics at least seeks to find allocations which make humans as happy as possible, as preferences are taken as given. Second, the analytical methodology of neoclassical economics preferably frames situations as markets, whereas there is sufficient evidence suggesting that, if a given situation is framed as a market, most people tend to behave more selfishly (Liberman, Samuels, & Ross, 2004) because in market-like contexts, there is broad acceptance of self-interest, and it may even constitute the social norm to follow. The association between markets and self-interested behavior is understood even by noneconomists (Bicchieri, 2006).