Economics as Applied Ethics: Value Judgements in Welfare Economics by Wilfred Beckerman (Book Review)

This is a well-written textbook geared to advanced undergraduate or graduate students of economics, many of whom are largely and regrettably innocent of the ethical problems inherent in conventional economic analysis. It compares with Daniel M. Hausman and Michael S. McPherson’s Economic analysis, moral philosophy, and public policy (2006) and Johan J. Graafland’s Economics, ethics, and the market: introduction and applications (2007). The book presupposes a fair amount of knowledge in both economics and ethics (it does not intend to be a primer in either). The author is professor emeritus at Balliol College, Oxford and honorary visiting professor of economics at University College London, and this book arose from a third-year course at the latter school in which he participated