The distinction between positive economics – describing economic programmes, situations and conditions as they exist normative prescribing policies has a long history. It is an especially important in public economics, which by its nature concerns the actions of government. In this essay, I consider how two relatively recent developments tax alter, blur or at least complicate classic distinctio...

Innovation and the adoption of new ideas is fundamental to economic progress, and so is free trade of goods and services. Herewe examine the underlying economics of the market for ideas and its implications for trade. From a positive perspective, we examine how such markets function and how international trade interact with them. From a normative perspective, we examine the pitfalls of current ...

This paper reviews the scientific contributions of Paul Krugman to the study of international trade, on the occasion of his receipt of the 2008 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics. A simplified exposition is presented of some of his principal findings, including: the effects of trade on firm scale and product diversity in a general model of monopolistic competition; the integration of monopolisti...

Field experiments have grown significantly in prominence since the 1990s. In this article, we provide a summary of the major types of field experiments, explore their uses, and describe a few examples. We show how field experiments can be used for both positive and normative purposes within economics. We also discuss more generally why data collection is useful in science, and more narrowly dis...

An important role of normative economics is to provide an analytical framework to evaluate social states. Such an evaluation is based on value judgments derived from moral views of the members of the society. There exist three major approaches in normative ethics, which formalize many people’s moral views. These are consequentialism that focuses on consequences of actions such as utilitarianism...

Interest in behavioral economics has grown in recent years, stimulated largely by accumulating evidence that the standard model of consumer decision making provides an inadequate, positive description of human behavior. Behavioral models are increasingly finding their way into policy evaluation, which inevitably involves welfare analysis. No consensus concerning the appropriate standards and cr...

Milton Friedman is usually presented as an economist characterized by his empirical approach to economics. His binary classification of economics into positive means and normative ends relies on the content predictions. Throughout career, he used extensive, data-based statistical techniques. While important scholarly attention has been devoted Friedman’s academic political trajectories, methodo...

The three dichotomies model, first proposed in Hunt (1976), restricts marketing science to the positive half of the positive-normative dichotomy. We argue that the "necessity challenge" of the positive-normative dichotomy in Robin (1977) stands, and that the positive half of the positive-normative dichotomy is virtually empty if all of the normative terms are removed. Thus marketing, as current...