Transforming Homo Economicus: The use of other social sciences in US economics

This project studies the relationships between economics and other social sciences from 1918 to the present. Concerning the changing nature of these relationships, our working hypothesis is that the image of economics as estranging itself from other social sciences from WWII on obscures its actual transformation over the past hundred years. The gradual shift away from interwar pluralism to postwar neoclassicism is well-established. What is less known, however, is that economists continued to draw on other social sciences even as their discipline became less pluralistic. Throughout the period, the use of findings and approaches from other social sciences remained inextricably linked with the critique and amendment of economics’ behavioral assumptions. In other words, the use of other social sciences in economics provides a window for considering its transformation throughout the twentieth century and in the first two decades of the next.

Supporting mechanism: International Research Network

Active dates: 2022-2026

Full listing of partner institutions:

CNRS

CY Cergy Paris Université

Duke University

École normale supérieure Paris-Saclay

London School of Economics and Political Science

Université de Cergy-Pontoise

Université Paris Nanterre