Economists and Societies

Marion Fourcade

Economists and Societies is the first book to systematically compare the profession of economics in the United States, Britain, and France, and to explain why economics, far from being a uniform science, differs in important ways among these three countries. Drawing on in-depth interviews with economists, institutional analysis, and a wealth of scholarly evidence, Marion Fourcade traces the history of economics in each country from the late nineteenth century to the present, demonstrating how each political, cultural, and institutional context gave rise to a distinct professional and disciplinary configuration. She argues that because the substance of political life varied from country to country, people's experience and understanding of the economy, and their political and intellectual battles over it, crystallized in different ways--through scientific and mercantile professionalism in the United States, public-minded elitism in Britain, and statist divisions in France. Fourcade moves past old debates about the relationship between culture and institutions in the production of expert knowledge to show that scientific and practical claims over the economy in these three societies arose from different elites with different intellectual orientations, institutional entanglements, and social purposes.Much more than a history of the economics profession, Economists and Societies is a revealing exploration of American, French, and British society and culture as seen through the lens of their respective economic institutions and the distinctive character of their economic experts.

List of Figures vii List of Tables ix Preface xi List of Abbreviations xix Introduction: Economics and Society 1 Three Trajectories 7 Critical Organized Comparisons 12 National Constellations 15 The Dialectical Relationship between Culture and Economics 28 Chapter One: Institutional Logics in Comparative Perspective 31 Federal Constitutionalism in America 32 The Rise and Fall of British Elitism 40 The Transformations of French Statism 50 Institutional Complementarities and the Coherence of Social Life 59 Chapter Two: The United States: Merchant Professionals 61 Forms of Academic Entrenchment 63 The Meaning of Science in American Economics 77 The Academic Roots of Public Expertise 96 The Economics Industry 114 American Economists, from Professional Scientism to Scientific Professionalism 125 Chapter Three: Britain: Public-Minded Elites 129 A Late but Extensive Institutionalization 131 The Scientific and Moral Transformation of British Economics 148 Administrators and Specialists 163 Economic Persuasion 175 The Waning High Culture of British Economics 183 Chapter Four: France: Statist Divisions 185 A Fragmented Academicization 187 The Nationalization of Economic Expertise 203 The "Administrative Economists" 215 The Missing Private Jurisdiction 225 Economists as Intellectuals, Intellectuals as Economists 230 The Segmented Worlds of French Economics 234 Conclusion: Economists and Societies 237 The Social Structures of Economics in Comparative Perspective 241 Contribution of a Sociology of Economic Knowledge to Economic Sociology 261 Appendix 263 Notes 269 References 315 Index 369