Category: Book Reviews
Just Playing, Ken Binmore
Abstract
The article is an attempt to clarify the relationship between economic models and mechanisms. The latter refer to causal processes and interactions. What role do they play in models? One must distinguish between models as non-linguistic constructs and models in the more usual sense of formal systems of definitions and mathematical relations. Models in the second sense are interpreted as purporting to characterise or describe in part models in the first sense. Thus the fact that there is no explicit reference to process-based mechanisms in many formal models does not mean that these mechanisms do not play an essential role in the non-linguistic models that these formal models describe in an incomplete way.
Keywords
Economic Models, Economic Mechanisms, Deductivism, Isolated Systems
JEL Classification: B41
The social responsibility of firms: An ethical leap across a legal void?, Sophie Swaton
Abstract
Despite its present-day success story in the field of management, corporate social responsibility (CSR) is not a new concept, but one that emerged in the 1950s. One may therefore wonder about such a resurgence for a concept whose interpretations are numerous and sometimes quite opposed to one another. Our hypothesis is that CSR, understood on a very topical functional level, results from a deficiency of substantive law. This gap could also explain the evolution of the historical and conceptual approach of CSR, perceived on a second level: the need to seek a foundation in ethics first, and then in political philosophy. However, such a search for foundations does not necessarily succeed. Nevertheless, far from limiting ourselves to a critical standpoint, we try to propose here a clarification of CSR and all the levels involved, in particular the ethical standpoint, which could be more deeply analyzed.
JEL classification: B20, B52, M14.
Keywords
- responsibility
- ethics
- shareholders
- contracts
- norms
- deliberation