Economic Theory and the Political Scientist

Abstract

ANY valid piece of economic analysis is, of course, potentially interesting to the scientist, just as his results are of interest to the economist. However, especially since the time when superseded political as standard nomenclature, most of the economist's work has been kept pure of direct application. Many of his theorems are essentially designed to be descriptive and their implications either for policy or for theory are seldom stressedindeed, they are sometimes not even discernible. Nevertheless, some lines of economic thought have produced, or sought to produce, results which are of direct interest to the scientist. Some of this work seems to have landed in the border territories which separate the two disciplines. Noteworthy in this respect is the field of welfare economics. In it are examined the effects of economic actions and decisions on the welfare of the individuals who compose the economy or, more generally, on the welfare of any group to which the analyst chooses to direct his attention. In short, it might be described as the theory of economic policy. In practice, work in welfare economics has been considerably narrower than this suggests, but at least some of it has been produced in this spirit, being concerned primarily with the composition of output-the amounts produced of each of the different commodities. The effects on output composition of the price mechanism, of the presence of monopolistic elements, and of different policies for the operation of nationalized industries have been examined and evaluated in terms of the preferences of the public. In other words, these economic forms have been considered as control