bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Attenuation of the Systemic Inflammatory Response and Infectious Complications After Gastrectomy with Preoperative Oral Arginine and ω‐3 Fatty Acids Supplemented Immunonutrition
Authors: Okamoto Yoshiki , Okano Keiichi , Izuishi Kunihiko , Usuki Hisashi , Wakabayashi Hisao , Suzuki Yasuyuki
Published: July 2009

Background

Past trials have shown perioperative immunonutrition to improve the outcome for patients with gastric cancer. The present study was designed to evaluate the effect of preoperative oral immunonutrition on cellular immunity, the duration of the systemic inflammatory response syndrome (SIRS), and detailed postoperative complications in patients with gastric cancer.

Methods

Sixty patients with gastric cancer were randomly assigned to two groups: one group received immune‐enhanced formulas supplemented with arginine and ω‐3 fatty acids (immune‐enhancing diet (ID) group, n = 30); the other received standard formulas (conventional diet (CD) group, n = 30) for 7 days before the operation. These groups were well matched in terms of age, sex, operations, cancer stages, and intraoperative variables. The postoperative outcome was evaluated based on clinical variables, including postoperative infectious complications, noninfectious complications, and SIRS duration. In addition, the perioperative state of cellular immunity was evaluated and compared between the two groups.

Results

The incidence of postoperative infectious complications in the ID group (6%) was significantly (p < 0.05) lower than that of the CD group (28%). The duration of SIRS in the ID group (0.77 ± 0.9 days) was significantly (p < 0.05) shorter than that in the CD group (1.34 ± 1.45 days). The postoperative lymphocyte and CD4+T‐cell counts significantly decreased (p < 0.05) in both groups. However, the number of CD4+T‐cells on preoperative day 1 and postoperative day 7 was significantly (p < 0.05) higher in the ID group than in the CD group.

Conclusions

Preoperative oral immune‐enhanced formulas supplemented with arginine and ω‐3 fatty acids enhanced the immune status of the patients, reduced the duration of SIRS, and decreased the incidence of postoperative infectious complications. CD4+T‐cell immunity likely played an important role in the modulation of the postoperative immune and inflammatory response after gastrectomy.
Pancreatic Insulinoma: A Surgical Experience
Authors: España‐Gómez María Nayví , Velázquez‐Fernández David , Bezaury Paulina , Sierra Mauricio , Pantoja Juan Pablo , Herrera Miguel F.
Published: July 2009

Background

Small size, high benignity rate, and sporadic nature make insulinomas suitable for laparoscopic resection. On the other hand, occult location or multicentricity mandate open surgery. This study was designed to analyze a series of patients who had pancreatic insulinomas and underwent initial treatment at our institution.

Methods

Clinical records of the 34 patients with pancreatic insulinomas who underwent surgical resection between 1995 and 2007 were reviewed. Main variables for analysis were cure of the disease and surgical complications.

Results

There were 20 women and 14 men with a mean age of 40 ± 13 years. Mean size of the tumors was 2.2 ± 1 cm. Laparoscopic resection was completed in 14 of 21 patients. Most tumors that were resected by laparoscopy were solitary, benign, and located in the body and tail of the pancreas. Open surgery was selected for 13 patients, including 7 sporadic (5 in the head), 4 related to the MEN syndrome, and 2 malignant tumors. Surgical morbidity occurred in 23 patients. The most common complication was pancreatic fistula (3/13 in open, 4/14 in laparoscopic, and 6/7 in conversions). One patient in the open group died 15 days after surgery from massive PTE. Postoperative normoglycemia was achieved in all patients and persisted for a follow‐up period of 4 ± 3.7 years.

Conclusions

Most insulinomas in our series were small and benign. Tumors that were located in the body and tail were more often amenable for laparoscopic resection. The cure rate was very high. Pancreatic fistula was the most frequent complication.
Long‐term needs of adult patients with organic acidaemias: outcome and prognostic factors
Authors: Martín‐Hernández E. , Lee P. J. , Micciche A. , Grunewald S. , Lachmann R. H.
Published: July 2009

Background: With improvements in the treatment of children with organic acidaemias (OA), the number surviving to adulthood is increasing. To plan appropriate services for their care it is important to know what their needs are. Objective: To describe the clinical and social problems affecting adult patients with OA. Patients and methods: We reviewed the medical records of 15 adult patients diagnosed with OA. Social attainment (housing, schooling and occupation) was analysed. Nutritional status was evaluated by body mass index (BMI) and laboratory studies. Neurological and visceral complications were noted. Cognitive outcome was evaluated by psychometric testing and/or educational attainment. Results: Seven had methylmalonic acidaemia (MMA), 4 isovaleric acidaemia (IVA) and 4 propionic acidaemia (PA). Ten were female, and median age was 23.5 years (range 18–48). All but three had late‐onset disease. Two patients became pregnant during follow up. Four patients had obtained university degrees and were working. Three‐quarters of the patients required some kind of social support. All had a good nutritional status. Height was normal in IVA and 3 PA patients. Osteoporosis was present in 2 out of 8 patients assessed. A variety of neurocognitive or visceral complications were seen in two‐thirds of the patients. Metabolic decompensations were unusual. Conclusions: The approach to adult patients with OA has to be multidisciplinary, with the clinician and dietician as the core of the team, but with the collaboration of clinical nurses specialists, social workers and other specialist services and the support of a biochemical and molecular laboratory.
Comparative performance of species‐richness estimators using data from a subtropical forest tree community
Authors: Wei Shi‐guang , Li Lin , Walther Bruno A. , Ye Wan‐hui , Huang Zhong‐liang , Cao Hong‐lin , Lian Ju‐Yu , Wang Zhi‐Gao , Chen Yu‐Yun
Published: July 2009

We used survey data collected from a large plot (20 ha) of sub‐tropical forest in the Dinghushan Nature Reserve, Guangdong Province, southern China, in 2005 to test the comparative performance of nine species‐richness estimators (number of observed species, three species‐individual curve models, five nonparametric estimators). As the true species richness, we used the 210 free‐standing shrub and tree species of >1 cm diameter at breast height recorded during the survey. This true species richness was then used to calculate performance measures of bias, accuracy, and precision for each estimator, whereby we distinguished performance for low, medium, and high sampling intensity. Unsurprisingly, all estimators performed better than the number of observed species in terms of bias and accuracy. Surprisingly, however, two curve models (logistic and logarithm) outperformed all other estimators in terms of bias, accuracy, and precision, which is in contrast to most other previous studies, in which nonparametric methods usually outperform curve models. Intriguingly, relative estimator performance changed between low, medium, and high sampling intensity, sometimes dramatically, reinforcing the assertion that the influence of sampling intensity on estimator performance is an important aspect to investigate and to consider when choosing estimators for ecological surveys. Because these results are based on only one dataset, the results should be treated with caution, both because (1) the generality of these results needs to be confirmed with simulated datasets and (2) more work is needed to establish what “true” species richness is extrapolated by each of the tested estimators in both the statistical and the practical sense. Nevertheless, the two curve estimators, namely Logistic and Logarithm, should be considered in future studies of comparative performance of species‐richness estimators because of their outstanding performance in this study.
Mesoporous Silica: A Suitable Adsorbent for Amines
Authors: Zamani Cyrus , Illa Xavi , Abdollahzadeh-Ghom Sara , Morante JR , Romano Rodríguez Albert
Published: July 2009

Mesoporous silica with KIT-6 structure was investigated as a preconcentrating material in chromatographic systems for ammonia and trimethylamine. Its adsorption capacity was compared to that of existing commercial materials, showing its increased adsorption power. In addition, KIT-6 mesoporous silica efficiently adsorbs both gases, while none of the employed commercial adsorbents did. This means that KIT-6 Mesoporous silica may be a good choice for integrated chromatography/gas sensing micro-devices.
CCN3 and bone marrow cells
Authors: Katsube Ken‐ichi , Ichikawa Saki , Katsuki Yuko , Kihara Tasuku , Terai Masanori , Lau Lester F. , Tamamura Yoshihiro , Takeda Shin’ichi , Umezawa Akihiro , Sakamoto Kei , Yamaguchi Akira
Published: July 2009

CCN3 expression was observed in a broad variety of tissues from the early stage of development. However, a kind of loss of function in mice (CCN3 del VWC domain ‐/‐) demonstrated mild abnormality, which indicates that CCN3 may not be critical for the normal embryogenesis as a single gene. The importance of CCN3 in bone marrow environment becomes to be recognized by the studies of hematopoietic stem cells and Chronic Myeloid Leukemia cells. CCN3 expression in bone marrow has been denied by several investigations, but we found CCN3 positive stromal and hematopoietic cells at bone extremities with a new antibody although they are a very few populations. We investigated the expression pattern of CCN3 in the cultured bone marrow derived mesenchymal stem cells and found its preference for osteogenic differentiation. From the analyses of in vitro experiment using an osteogenic mesenchymal stem cell line, Kusa‐A1, we found that CCN3 downregulates osteogenesis by two different pathways; suppression of BMP and stimulation of Notch. Secreted CCN3 from Kusa cells inhibited the differentiation of osteoblasts in separate culture, which indicates the paracrine manner of CCN3 activity. CCN3 may also affect the extracellular environment of the niche for hematopoietic stem cells.
HIV vulnerabilities of sex‐trafficked Indian women and girls
Authors: Gupta Jhumka , Raj Anita , Decker Michele R. , Reed Elizabeth , Silverman Jay G.
Published: July 2009

Objective

To qualitatively explore potential mechanisms that may confer heightened risk for HIV infection among survivors of sex trafficking in India.

Methods

Case narratives of 61 repatriated women and girls who reported being trafficked into sex work and were receiving services at an NGO in Mysore, India, were reviewed. Narratives were analyzed to examine potential sources of HIV risk related to sex trafficking.

Results

Participants were aged 14–30 years. Among the 48 women and girls tested for HIV, 45.8% were HIV positive. Narratives described very low levels of autonomy, with control exacted by brothel managers and traffickers. Lack of control appeared to heighten trafficked women and girls' vulnerability to HIV infection in the following ways: use of violent rape as a means of coercing initiation into sex work, inability to refuse sex, inability to use condoms or negotiate use, substance use as a coping strategy, and inadequate access to health care.

Conclusion

Sex trafficked women and girls lack autonomy and are rendered vulnerable to HIV infection through several means. Development of HIV prevention strategies specifically designed to deal with lack of autonomy and reach sex‐trafficked women and girls is imperative.
Influence of conjugated linoleic acids on functional properties of vascular cells
Authors: Ringseis Robert , Eder Klaus
Published: July 2009

Conjugated linoleic acids (CLA) are biologically highly active lipid compounds that inhibit the development of atherosclerotic plaques in experimental animals. The underlying mechanisms of action, however, are only poorly understood. Since cell-culture experiments are appropriate to provide a detailed view into the mechanisms of action of a compound, the present review summarises results fromin vitrostudies dealing with the effects of CLA isomers and CLA mixtures on functional properties of cells of the vascular wall, such as endothelial cells, smooth muscle cells and monocyte-derived macrophages, which are amongst the major cells contributing to atherosclerotic lesion development. Based on these studies, it can be concluded that CLA exert several beneficial actions in cells of the vascular wall through the activation of nuclear PPAR. These actions of CLA, which may, at least partially, explain the inhibition of atherogenesis by dietary CLA, include modulation of vasoactive mediator release from endothelial cells, inhibition of inflammatory and fibrotic processes in activated smooth muscle cells, abrogation of inflammatory responses in activated macrophages, and reduction of cholesterol accumulation in macrophage-derived foam cells.
Antioxidant effect of lutein towards phospholipid hydroperoxidation in human erythrocytes
Authors: Nakagawa Kiyotaka , Kiko Takehiro , Hatade Keijiro , Sookwong Phumon , Arai Hiroyuki , Miyazawa Teruo
Published: July 2009

Peroxidised phospholipid-mediated cytotoxity is involved in the pathophysiology of many diseases; for example, phospholipid hydroperoxides (PLOOH) are abnormally increased in erythrocytes of dementia patients. Dietary carotenoids (especially xanthophylls, polar carotenoids such as lutein) have gained attention as potent inhibitors against erythrocyte phospholipid hydroperoxidation, thereby making them plausible candidates for preventing diseases (i.e. dementia). To evaluate these points, we investigated whether orally administered lutein is distributed to human erythrocytes, and inhibits erythrocyte PLOOH formation. Six healthy subjects took one capsule of food-grade lutein (9·67 mg lutein per capsule) once per d for 4 weeks. Before and during the supplementation period, carotenoids and PLOOH in erythrocytes and plasma were determined by our developed HPLC technique. The administered lutein was incorporated into human erythrocytes, and erythrocyte PLOOH level decreased after the ingestion for 2 and 4 weeks. The antioxidative effect of lutein was confirmed on erythrocyte membranes, but not in plasma. These results suggest that lutein has the potential to act as an important antioxidant molecule in erythrocytes, and it thereby may contribute to the prevention of dementia. Therefore future biological and clinical studies will be required to evaluate the efficacy as well as safety of lutein in models of dementia with a realistic prospect of its use in human therapy.
Modeling Rational Players: Part II
Authors: Binmore Ken
Published: July 2009

This is the second part of a two-part paper. It can be read independently of the first part provided that the reader is prepared to go along with the unorthodox views on game theory which were advanced in Part I and are summarized below. The body of the paper is an attempt to study some of the positive implications of such a viewpoint. This requires an exploration of what is involved in modeling “rational players” as computing machines.
A Set of Axioms for Neoclassical Economics and the Methodological Status of the Equilibrium Concept
Authors: Vilks Arnis
Published: July 2009

It is widely agreed that the concept of general equilibrium and, in particular, general equilibrium existence proofs play a central role within the neoclassical approach to economic theory. There is much less agreement, however, on the concepts of general equilibrium and of neoclassical economic theory themselves.
Private and Public Preferences
Authors: Kuran Timur
Published: July 2009

The theory of revealed preference, which lies at the core of the neoclassical economic method, asserts that people's preference orderings are revealed by their actions. This assertion has two possible meanings, of which one is a truism and the other false. When a person joins a riot against the government, he reveals through this action that he would rather riot than not. This is the sense in which the assertion is a truism. But if one means that the person must want a change of government, this is certainly false. His decision to riot could mean only that he considers it dangerous to stay on the sidelines.
Cooter and Rappoport on the Normative
Authors: Davis John B.
Published: July 2009

In a recent examination of the origins of ordinal utility theory in neoclassical economics, Robert D. Cooter and Peter Rappoport argue that the ordinalist revolution of the 1930s, after which most economists abandoned interpersonal utility comparisons as normative and unscientific, constituted neither unambiguous progress in economic science nor the abandonment of normative theorizing, as many economists and historians of economic thought have generally believed (Cooter and Rappoport, 1984). Rather, the widespread acceptance of ordinalism, with its focus on Pareto optimality, simply represented the emergence of a new neoclassical research agenda that, on the one hand, defined economics differently than had the material welfare theorists of the cardinal utility school and, on the other, adopted a positivist methodology in contrast to the less restrictive empiricism of the cardinalists.
Spontaneous Market Order and Social Rules
Authors: Vanberg Viktor
Published: July 2009

Discoverers of “market failures” as well as advocates of the general efficiency of a “true, unhampered market” sometimes seem to disregard the fundamental fact that there is no such thing as a “market as such.” What we call a market is always a system of social interaction characterized by a specific institutional framework, that is, by a set of rules defining certain restrictions on the behavior of the market participants, whether these rules are informal, enforced by private sanctions, or formal, enforced by a particular agency, the “protective state,” in J. M. Buchanan's (1975) terminology.
Lakatosian Consolations for Economics
Authors: Rosenberg Alexander
Published: July 2009

The F-twist is giving way to the methodology of scientific research programs. Milton Friedman's “Methodology for Economics” is being supplanted as the orthodox rationale for neoclassical economics by Imre Lakatos' account of scientific respectability. Friedman's instrumentalist thesis that theories are to be judged by the confirmation of their consequences and not the realism of their assumptions has long been widely endorsed by economists, under Paul Samuelson's catchy rubric “the F-twist.” It retains its popularity among economists who want no truck with methodology, but among the increasing number of able economists who are writing on methodology the F-twist has been surrendered, not so much because these writers have decided it is false, as because something better has finally come along.
The Logic of Rational Play in Games of Perfect Information
Authors: Bonanno Giacomo
Published: July 2009

For the past 20 years or so the literature on noncooperative games has been centered on the search for an equilibrium concept that expresses the notion of rational behavior in interactive situations. A basic tenet in this literature is that if a “rational solution” exists, it must be a Nash equilibrium. The consensus view, however, is that not all Nash equilibria can be accepted as rational solutions. Consider, for example, the game of Figure 1.
Pisces Economicus: The Fish as Economic Man
Authors: Boulier Bryan L. , Goldfarb Robert S.
Published: July 2009

Since a paradigmatic approach is judged in part by the range of phenomena it can explain, neoclassical microeconomists have no doubt gained assurance about the power of their paradigm by the invasion of economics into a number of related fields, what Hirschleifer (1985) has referred to as the “expanding domain of economics.” Moreover, even beyond these excursions into the provinces of other social sciences concerned with human behavior, economics has also recently expanded into the analysis of animal behavior (cf. Battalio, Kagel, and McDonald, 1985). This development not only adds more scientific prestige to the approach, but allows economists to use research techniques developed in more experimentally oriented disciplines.
Methodological Individualism and Marxism
Authors: Sensat Julius
Published: July 2009

Recent years have witnessed an increasing number of attempts to reconstruct Marxian theory in forms that can be assessed by reference to currently received standards in various disciplines (economics and “analytic” philosophy, for example). The work has even been said to establish a new paradigm: “analytical Marxism.” One doesn't have to endorse this claim to recognize a good deal of merit in the work. Through creative application of state-of-the-art methods to traditional Marxian issues, researchers have promoted productive cross-fertilization with non-Marxian programs and have revealed many problems that must be resolved for fruitful development of Marxian theory. Marx's work can be relevant to today's problems only if it is examined from vantage points provided by subsequent scientific and philosophical achievements. Moreover, critical engagement with the best science of the day has been an essential part of the Marxian theoretical project from the beginning.
Keynes, Rawls, Uncertainty, and the Liberal Theory of the State
Authors: McKenna Edward , Wade Maurice , Zannoni Diane
Published: July 2009

What role, if any, should the government perform in a society? Two very different answers to this question have been provided by John Rawls and Robert Nozick. For Rawls, the government plays an important role in ensuring that the principles of justice are realized in the workings of society. For Nozick (1974), the role of government is limited to that of providing protection. The debate over these two views has led to the questioning of the entire liberal doctrine, a questioning that has taken place not only within intellectual circles, but also within the society at large.
The Firm as Association Versus the Firm as Commodity
Authors: Putterman Louis
Published: July 2009

Recent years have seen the flowering of a new literature on the economic nature of firms marked by a concern with their internal organization and contractual characteristics. Related literatures on the principal-agent problem and the theory of financial markets have also contributed to a better understanding of firms as economic institutions. However, the place of the concept ofthe ownership of the firmis poorly developed in most of this literature, with many writers either ignoring the concept entirely or arguing that it is of no importance. The purpose of the present article is to point out that the concept of ownership of firms is crucial to an understanding of internal governance issues. Most economists implicitly presume that firms must be ownable and saleable if they are to be operated efficiently, and recently this viewpoint has been made more explicit by writers such as Jensen and Fama and Williamson. Their point of view is to some degree at odds with views of the firm as a coalition, which frequently appear in the same literature, and even more fundamentally in conflict with conceptions of the firm as an association or polity within which greater or lesser degrees of democracy in governance may be pursued. The first purpose of this article is to show that the incompletely articulated position of the leading authors on the economics of organization is that the firm is a commodity and must be so for purposes of efficiency.
Is Individual Choice Less Problematic than Collective Choice?
Authors: Kavka Gregory S.
Published: July 2009

It is commonplace to suppose that the theory of individual rational choice is considerably less problematic than the theory of collective rational choice. In particular, it is often assumed by philosophers, economists, and other social scientists that an individual's choices among outcomes (or lotteries yielding specified probabilities of outcomes) accurately reflect that individual's underlying preferences or values. Further, it is now well known that if an individual's choices among outcomes (or lotteries thereof) satisfy certain plausible axioms of rationality or consistency, that individual's choice-behavior can be interpreted as maximizing expected utility on a utility scale that is unique up to a linear transformation (Ramsey, 1931; Savage, 1954; Von Neumann and Morgenstern, 1944). Hence, there is, in principle, an empirically respectable method of measuring individuals' values and a single unified schema for explaining their actions as value maximizing (insofar as they act rationally).
Roemer's “General” Theory of Exploitation Is a Special Case:The Limits of Walrasian Marxism
Authors: Devine James , Dymski Gary
Published: July 2009

In a series of recent writings, John Roemer (1982a, 1982b, 1985, 1988) has made a provocative claim: exploitation and class are merely second-order concepts within Marxian theory, because both phenomena derive directly from differential ownership of productive assets (DOPA); indeed, exploitation remains a consistent index of economic injustice only if a “property relations” conception of exploitation replaces the common “labor-value” view. In sum, property relations, not the labor exchange, the labor proces, labor values, or even capitalist accumlation should bethecentral concern of Marxian theory.
Money and Value: On The Ethics and Economics of Finance
Authors: Sen Amartya
Published: July 2009

I feel deeply honored and privileged to have the opportunity of giving the first Baffi Lecture at the Bank of Italy. Paolo Baffi was not only a distinguished banker and financial expert, he was also a remarkable economist and a visionary social thinker. He had outstanding technical expertise in many different fields, but combined his intellectual eminence with a profound sense of values. As Governor Ciampi put it at the general meeting of the Bank of Italy last May, Paolo Baffi represented “an extraordinary combination of penetrating logic, erudition and moral strength … [he was] not only a gifted student of economics, he had a deep-seated commitment to act for the common good.”1 In remembering Baffi today, we must keep in mind both his intellectual contributions and his general evaluative concerns.
The Scope and Limits of Preference Sovereignty
Authors: Cowen Tyler
Published: July 2009

Economists use tastes as a source of information about personal welfare and judge the effects of policies upon preference satisfaction; neoclassical welfare economics is the analytical embodiment of this preference sovereignty norm. For an initial distribution of wealth, the welfare-maximizing outcome is the one that exhausts all possible gains from trade. Gains from trade are defined relative to fixed ordinal preferences. This analytical apparatus consists of both the Pareto principle, which implies that externality-free voluntary trades increase welfare, and applied costbenefit analysis, which attempts to weight costs and benefits when evaluating policies that are not Pareto improvements.
Audience Effects In Consumption
Authors: M.Coşgel Metin
Published: July 2009

Consider how your consumption would change if you were stranded on a deserted island. Isolation would eliminate all social influences on your consumption decisions, even for the same choice set. You might decide not to consume cosmetics, curtains, or neckties, and pay less attention to the style or color of your clothes, car, or furniture. These choices might not matter as much to you anymore, for you would not have to consider the reactions of other individuals to your consumption. Similarly, isolation would also eliminate social influences on your speech. Absent an audience, your choice of words would not be subject to the judgments of others.
Appraising General Equilibrium Analysis
Authors: Weintraub E. Roy
Published: July 2009

General equilibrium analysis is a theoretical structure which focuses research in economics. On this point economists and philosophers agree. Yet studies in general equilibrium analyses are not well understood in the sense that, though their importance is recognized, their role in the growth of economic knowledge is a subject of some controversy. Several questions organize an appraisal of general equilibrium analysis. These questions have been variously posed by philosophers of science, economic methodologists, and historians of economic thought. Is general equilibrium analysis a theory, a paradigm, a scientific research program, or a set of interrelated theories? Is it not any of these but rather a branch of applied mathematics? Is GE analysis associated with the growth of knowledge, or does it waste intellectual resources? How is it related to other work in economics? Is it connected to, or is it apart from, the concerns of applied economists?
Entitlement Theories of Justice:From Nozick to Roemer and Beyond
Authors: van der Veen Robert J. , Van Parijs Philippe
Published: July 2009

InAnarchy, State, and Utopia, Robert Nozick contrasts entitlement theories of justice and “traditional” theories such as Rawls', utilitarianism or egalitarianism, and advocates the former against the latter. What exactly is an entitlement theory (or conception or principle) of justice? Nozick's book offers two distinct characterizations. On the one hand, he explicitly describes “the general outlines of the entitlement theory” as maintaining “that the holdings of a person are just if he is entitled to them by the principles of justice in acquisition and transfer, or by the principle of rectification of injustice (as specified by the first two principles of just acquisition and transfer)” (Nozick, 1974, p. 153). On the other hand, his famous “Wilt Chamberlain” argument against alternative theories is first said to apply to (all) “non-entitlement conceptions” (p. 160), and later to any “end-state principle or distributional patterned principle of justice” (p. 163) — which amounts to an implicit characterization of an entitlement conception (theory, principle) as a conception of justice which is neither end-state nor patterned.
Karl Popper and Economic Methodology: A New Look
Authors: Hands Douglas W.
Published: July 2009

Discussions of Karl Popper's falsificationist philosophy of science appear regularly in the recent literature on economic methodology. In this literature, there seem to be two fundamental points of agreement about Popper. First, most economists take Popper's falsificationist method of bold conjecture and severe test to be the correct characterization of scientific conduct in the physical sciences. Second, most economists admit that economic theory fails miserably when judged by these same falsificationist standards. As Latsis (1976, p. 8) states, “the development of economic analysis would look a dismal affair through falsificationist spectacles.”
Sartorial Epistemology in Tatters: A Reply to Martin Hollis
Authors: McCloskey Donald N.
Published: July 2009

Martin Hollis, in the introduction to the collection of Rationality and Relativism he edited recently with Steven Lukes, describes himself as the most arch of arch rationalists, “by which we mean, merely, that [we] reject the forthright relativization of truth and reason.” You might suppose that his self-description would place him unambiguously in the army of traditionalists arrayed against what Richard Rorty fondly calls the New Fuzzies (like himself and me). You might suppose, then, that Hollis would indulge in furious letter writing to, say, Harper's, telling us that “we need to stand shoulder to shoulder against the growing army of enemies of rationality. By that I mean the followers of the fashionable cult of absolute relativism, emerging from philosophy, linguistics, semiotics, and deconstructionism.” You might suppose that he would go on in this way equivocating between “rationality” and “rationalism,” identifying the people he dislikes with the enemies of civilization: fascists, Stalinists, bikers, bomb throwing nihilists — Richard Rorty and Wayne Booth and Stephen Toulmin riding into town on their Harley- (or Donald-) Davidsons, spurning warrants for belief and good reasons, reading pornographic comic books (the new literary canon), and snarling at the townsfolk huddled behind the local syllogism.
Should Social Preferences Be Consistent?
Authors: Broome John
Published: July 2009

Should social preferences conform to the principles of rationality we normally expect of individuals? Should they, for instance, conform to the consistency axioms of expected utility theory? This article considers one fragment of this question.
Rawls's Lexical Orderings Are Good Economics
Authors: Cooter Robert D.
Published: July 2009

Basic liberty, according to Rawls's first principle of justice, is not to be sacrificed for other values such as wealth. And, according to his second principle of justice, the material well-being of the worst-off members of society is not to be sacrificed to benefit better-off members of society. These trade-offs would be unjust, according to Rawls, no matter how small the sacrifice or how large the offsetting benefit. A decision-maker conforming to Rawls's theory, who is unwilling to sacrifice some values in favor of others, has lexical preferences. Lexical preferences, however, are not encountered in studies of consumer demand for market goods. Since goods trade off within the range of choices studied in demand theory, it seems to economists that political values ought to trade off as well.
Rights to Liberty in Purely Private Matters
Authors: Riley Jonathan
Published: July 2009

John Stuart Mill provides a classic defense of individual and group rights to liberty with respect to purely private or self-regarding matters:

The only part of the conduct of any one, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns himself … directly, and in the first instance, … his independence is, of right, absolute.… From this liberty of each individual, follows the liberty, within the same limits, of combination among individuals; freedom to unite, for any purpose not involving harm to others: the persons combining being supposed to be of full age, and not forced or deceived. (1859, pp. 224–26)
A Methodological Assessment of Multiple Utility Frameworks
Authors: Brennan Timothy J.
Published: July 2009

One of the fundamental components of the concept of economic rationality is that preference orderings are “complete,” i.e., that all alternative actions an economic agent can take are comparable (Arrow, 1951; De-breu, 1959). The idea that all actions can be ranked may be called the single utility assumption. The attractiveness of this assumption is considerable. It would be hard to fathom what choice among alternatives means if the available alternatives cannot be ranked by the chooser in some way. In addition, the efficiency criterion makes sense only if one can infer that an individual's choice reflects the best, in expected welfare terms, among all choices that individual could have made (Sen, 1982a). The possibility that a rearrangement of resources could make someone “better off” without making others “worse off” can be understood only if the post-rearrangement world is comparable with the pre-rearrange-ment world.
What Should We Do About Future Generations?
Authors: Ng Yew-Kwang
Published: July 2009

Parfit's requirements for an ideal Theory X cannot be fully met since the Mere Addition Principle and Non-Antiegalitarianism imply the Repugnant Conclusion: Theory X does not exist. However, since the Repugnant Conclusion is really compelling, the Impersonal Total Principle should be adopted for impartial comparisons concerning future generations. Nevertheless, where our own interests are affected, we may yet choose to be partial, trading off our concern for future (or others') goodness with our self-interests. Theory X' (maximization of number-dampened total utility) meets all Parfit's requirements except the Mere Addition Principle in less compelling cases.
Equality of Talent
Authors: Roemer John E.
Published: July 2009

If one is an egalitarian, what should one want to equalize? Opportunities or outcomes? Resources or welfare? These positions are usually conceived to be very different. I argue in this paper that the distinction is misconceived: the only coherent conception of resource equality implies welfare equality, in an appropriately abstract description of the problem. In this section, I motivate the program which the rest of the paper carries out.
Liberty, Preference, and Choice
Authors: Sugden Robert
Published: July 2009

Ever since its first publication in 1970, Amartya Sen's paper “The Impossibility of a Paretian Liberal” (reprinted in Sen, 1982) has served as the starting point for almost all discussions of liberty in social choice theory. However, a number of people, myself included, have argued that Sen's theorem rests on a misleading characterization of liberty (Nozick, 1974, pp. 164–166; Bernholz, 1974; Sugden, 1978, 1981, pp. 193–198; Garden-fors, 1981; Levi, 1982). In a recent paper, addressed to a philosophical audience, Sen (1983) has provided a careful defence of his theorem against this charge. I shall argue that this defence does not work.
Weakness of Will and the Free-Rider Problem
Authors: Elster Jon
Published: July 2009

The study of intrapersonal economic relations, oreconomics, is still at the programmatic stage. There is no generally accepted paradigm, or even as well-defined set of problems that constitute it as a subdiscipline within economics. Some questions are, however, emerging as foci of interest for a small but increasing number of writers, not just in economics, but also in psychology and philosophy. The writings of Thomas Schelling on self-management, of George Ainslie on self-control, and of Derik Parfit on personal identity testify to this convergence.
John Stuart Mill's Famous Distinction Between Production and Distribution
Authors: Smith Vardaman R.
Published: July 2009

In the final sentence of the "Preliminary Remarks" to the Principles of Political Economy (1848), John Stuart Mill declares

The laws of Production and Distribution, and some of the practical consequences deducible from them, are the subject of the following treatise. (1848, p. 21)

It is almost two hundred pages before Mill asserts that

The laws and conditions of the Production of wealth partake of the character of physical truths. There is nothing optional or arbitrary in them. … It is not so with the Distribution of wealth. That is a matter of human institution solely. (1848, p. 199)
Interpreting Leamer
Authors: Glymour Clark
Published: July 2009

It is easy for a professional philosopher who reads Learner's essay “Let's Take the Con Out of Econometrics” to find a great deal in it that seems contentious, cavalier, or objectionable. Philosophers may even be puzzled as to what the fuss is all about. My guess is that the sorts of complaints philosophical readers are likely to make about Learner's paper are more the result of style than substance. The substance is very important.
Self-Interpretation
Authors: Leamer Edward E.
Published: July 2009

My essay “Let's Take the Con out of Econometrics” is intended to be an amusing, titillating, and even annoying distillation of ideas that I have published in a more formal, academic style in many different locations over the course of several years. As far as I could tell, these ideas were widely ignored until I adopted the more contentious style of “Con,” which, since its publication two years ago, has been reprinted in two volumes and excerpted in two others. There is something to be learned from this episode about the sociology of ideas. Notoriety, however, is a mixed blessing, since now I find myself spending too much of my time trying to explain what I meant.
Rights and Social Choice: Is There a Paretian Libertarian Paradox?
Authors: Pressler Jonathan
Published: July 2009

In 1970 Amartya Sen exposed an apparent antinomy that has come to be known as the Paradox of the Paretian Libertarian (Sen, 1970b, pp. 152–57). Sen introduced his paradox by establishing a simple but startling theorem. Roughly put, what he proved was that if a mechanism for selecting social choice functions satisfies two standard adequacy conditions, there are possible situations in which it will violate either the very weak libertarian precept that every individual has at least some rights or the seemingly innocuous Paretian principle that an option should be judged unacceptable if there is an available alternative that everyone prefers to it. Many economists and philosophers have proposed solutions to Sen's problem, but there is no general consensus on what solution (if any) is correct. In the present paper I argue that Sen's original theorem fails to establish the existence of any conflict between libertarianism and Paretianism. Furthermore, I contend that Sen has misinterpreted certain other theorems which he has used to defend the existence of a paradoxical conflict between these two doctrines. In general, I try to show that whenever Sen posits a Paretian-libertarian conflict to explain an apparently troubling result in social choice theory, the difficulty can be better dealt with either by claiming that the theorem in question imposes overly strong background constraints on the form of social choice functions or by claiming that it relies on an unacceptable construal of individual rights.
Rationality: A Third Dimension
Authors: Schick Frederic
Published: July 2009

I want in this paper to do two things. First, I want to respond to some studies that argue that people are often not rational: that people regularly and systematically depart from rationality. The conclusion itself does not worry me. I pressed for the same in a recent book (Schick, 1984). But the arguments seem to me wrong, and wrong in an interesting way. There may be something to be learned from seeing how and why they fail.
Shall I Compare Thee to a Minkowski-Ricardo-Leontief-Metzler Matrix of the Mosak-Hicks Type?:Or, Rhetoric, Mathematics, and the Nature of Neoclassical Economic Theory
Authors: Mirowski Philip
Published: July 2009

Is rhetoric just a new and trendy way toépater les bourgeois?Unfortunately, I think that the newfound interest of some economists in rhetoric, and particularly Donald McCloskey in his new book and subsequent responses to critics (McCloskey, 1985a, 1985b), gives that impression. After economists have worked so hard for the past five decades to learn their sums, differential calculus, real analysis, and topology, it is a fair bet that one could easily hector them about their woeful ignorance of the conjugation of Latin verbs or Aristotle's Six Elements of Tragedy. Moreover, it has certainly become an academic cliché that economists write as gracefully and felicitously as a hundred monkeys chained to broken typewriters. The fact that economists still trot out Keynes's prose in their defense is itself an index of the inarticulate desperation of an inarticulate profession.
A Note on the Empirical Adequacy of the Expressive Theory of Voting Behavior
Authors: Hudelson Richard
Published: July 2009

In their article, Geoffrey Brennan and Loren Lomasky (1985, p. 199) present an alternative to market theories of voting behavior. Contrary to market theories which view the voter as acting to maximize the expected self-interest, the alternative view sees voting as fundamentally an act of self-expression: “Voting, like speech, is an expressive activity providing an outlet for one's moral sentiments. We suggest that it is the expressive return to a vote that frequently determines the behavior of individuals in large-number electorates.”
Modeling Rational Players: Part I
Authors: Binmore Ken
Published: July 2009

Game theory has proved a useful tool in the study of simple economic models. However, numerous foundational issues remain unresolved. The situation is particularly confusing in respect of the non-cooperative analysis of games with some dynamic structure in which the choice of one move or another during the play of the game may convey valuable information to the other players. Without pausing for breath, it is easy to name at least 10 rival equilibrium notions for which a serious case can be made that here is the “right” solution concept for such games.
Egalitarianism, Responsibility, and Information
Authors: Roemer John E.
Published: July 2009

Radical and liberal theories of egalitarianism are distinguished, in large part, by the differing degrees to which they hold people responsible for their own well-being. The most liberal or individualistic theory calls for equality of opportunity. Once such “starting gate equality,” as Dworkin (1981a) calls it, is guaranteed, then any final outcome is justified, provided certain rules, such as voluntary trading, are observed. At the other pole, the most radical egalitarianism calls for equality of welfare (assuming that interpersonal welfare comparisons can be made, so that such equality makes sense). In between these two extremes are egalitarian proposals that equalize more than conventional opportunities, yet less than full welfare. Sen (1980) speaks of equality of basic capabilities as a goal; implementing that requires more than starting gate equality, because some will require more resources than others to attain the same capabilities. Meeting basic needs is another objective. Equality of needs fulfillment is perhaps less radical than equality of basic capabilities and more radical than equality of opportunity. Rawls (1971) takes equality of primary goods as a benchmark; he distinguishes primary goods from welfare, but includes among them goods that are more complicated than conventional resources and opportunities, all of which are supposed inputs into any conception of welfare. One could imagine proposing an egalitarianism that equalized some quite measurable outcome across populations, such as infant mortality. That would be an outcome-equalizing theory where the rate of infant mortality is a proxy, presumably, for some more complicated maximand, such as the degree of wellbeing of a population.
Free-Rider Problems in the Production of Collective Goods
Authors: Hampton Jean
Published: July 2009

There has been a persistent tendency to identify what is called “the freerider problem” in the production of collective (or public) goods with the prisoner's dilemma. However, in this article I want to challenge that identification by presenting an analysis of what are in facta varietyof collective action problems in the production of collective goods. My strategy is not to consult any intuitions about what the free-rider problem is; rather I will be looking at the problematic game-theoretic structures of various situations associated with the production of different types of collective goods, thereby showing what sorts of difficulties a community concerned with their voluntary production would face. I call all of these dilemmas free-rider problems because in all of them certain individuals find it rational to take advantage of others' willingness to contribute to the good in a way that threatens its production. Some readers may feel that the term ‘free-rider problem’ is so identified with the prisoner's dilemma that my extension of the term in this way “jars”; if so, I invite them to coin another word for the larger phenomenon. My aim is not to engage in linguistic analysis but to attempt at least a partial analysis of the complicated structure of collective good production.