The Economics of Science: Methodology and Epistemology as If Economics Really Mattered

Science is difficult and costly to do well. This study systematically creates an economics of science. Many aspects of science are explored from an economic point of view. The scientist is treated as an economically rational individual. This book begins with economic models of misconduct in science and the legitimate, normal practices of science, moving on to market failure, the market place of ideas, self-correctiveness, and the organizational and institutional structures of science. An exploration of broader methodological themes raised by an economics of science ends the work.

James R Wible has been a member of the economics faculty at the Whittemore School of Business and Economics, University of New Hampshire in Durham for more than a decade. His main research interests are economic methodology and the economics of science, the economics and philosophy of Charles Sanders Peirce, and macroeconomics and monetary theory.