John Davis

Professor Emeritus of Economics

John B. Davis is Professor of Economics at Marquette University and Professor and Chair of History and Philosophy of Economics at University of Amsterdam. He is author of Keynes’s Philosophical Development (Cambridge, 1994), The Theory of the Individual in Economics (Routledge, 2003), Individuals and Identity in Economics (Cambridge, 2011), and co-author with Marcel Boumans of Economic Methodology: Understanding Economics as a Science (Palgrave, 2010. He has been a visiting professor at the Sorbonne, Cambridge University, Erasmus University, and Duke University. He is a former editor of the Review of Social Economy, and currently co-editor of the Journal of Economic Methodology and editor of the Routledge book series Advances in Social Economics. He is a past president or chair of the History of Economics Society, the International Network for Economic Method, and the Association for Social Economics, and is vice-president of the European Society for the History of Economics. He has taught two dozen different courses.

• Personal website

Education

• PhD, MA, Economics, 1985, Michigan State University
• PhD, MA, BA, Philosophy, 1983, 1974, 1969, University of Illinois, Urbana
• MS, Economics, 1978, University of Illinois, Urbana

Professional Interests

Philosophy and Methodology of Economics, History of Economics, Health Economics, International Economics, Ethics and Economics.

Selected Publications

“Economics imperialism under the impact of psychology: The case of behavioral development economics,” Oeconomia 3 (March 2013): 119-138.

“Economists’ Odd Stand on the Positive-Normative Distinction: A Behavioral Economics View,” Oxford University Press Handbook on Professional Economic Ethics: Views from the Economics Profession and Beyond, G. DeMartino and D. McCloskey, eds., Oxford: Oxford University Press.

“Rawlsian individuals: Justice, experiments, and complexity,” Journal of Economic Issues 46:3 (September 2012): 729-743.

“The Change in Sraffa’s Philosophical Thinking,” Cambridge Journal of Economics, 36 (November 2012): 1342-1356.

Honors and Awards

• Thomas F. Divine Lifetime Achievement Award, Association for Social Economics, 2007
• Sabbatical Fellowship Award, Marquette University, 2007-2008
• Way Klingler Humanities Fellowship, Marquette University, 2006
• Sigma Xi, 2006 Distinguished Researcher Award, Marquette University chapter
• Myrdal Book Prize, European Association for Evolutionary Political Economy, 2004
• Miles Research Fellow, Marquette University, 2004-10
• Ludwig Mai Award, Association for Social Economics, 2000

Additional Information

Amsterdam History and Methodology Group

http://ase.uva.nl/