For over a century the economics profession has extended its reach to encompass policy formation and institutional design while largely ignoring the ethical challenges that attend the profession's influence over the lives of others. Economists have proven to be disinterested in ethics. Embracing emotivism, they often treat ethics a matter of mere preference. Moreover, economists tend to be hostile to professional economic ethics, which they incorrectly equate with a code of conduct that would be at best ineffectual and at worst disruptive to good economic practice. But good ethical reasoning is not reducible to mere tastes, and professional ethics is not reducible to a code. Instead, professional economic ethics refers to a new field of investigation-a tradition of sustained and lively inquiry into the irrepressible ethical entailments of academic and applied economic practice.The Oxford Handbook of Professional Economic Ethics explores a wide range of questions related to the nature of ethical economic practice and the content of professional economic ethics. It explores current thinking that has emerged in these areas while widening substantially the terrain of economic ethics. There has never been a volume that poses so directly and intensively the question of the need for and content of professional ethics for economics. The Handbook incorporates the work of leading scholars and practitioners, including academic economists from various theoretical traditions; applied economists, beyond academia, whose work has direct and immense social impact; and philosophers, professional ethicists, and others whose work has addressed the nature of "professionalism" and its implications for ethical practice.

ForewordWilliam EasterlyPART I: INTRODUCTION1. Introduction, or Why This Handbook?George F. DeMartino and Deirdre N. McCloskeyPART II: UNCERTAINTY, RISK AND PROFESSIONAL ECONOMIC ETHICS2. The Skin in the Game Heuristic for Protection Against Tail EventsNassim Nicholas Taleb and Constantine Sandis3. The Ethics of Economic Decision RulesSven Ove Hansson4. In Praise of Imperfect Commitment: An Ethic of Power, Professionalism, and RiskSharon D. Welch5. 'Econogenic Harm': On the Nature of and Responsibility for the Harm Economists Do as They Try to Do GoodGeorge F. DeMartinoPART III: THE ETHICAL NATURE OF ECONOMIC PRACTICE6. About Doing the Right Thing as an Academic EconomistErwin Dekker and Arjo Klamer7. The Social Responsibility of EconomistsPeter J. Boettke and Kyle W. O'Donnell8. The Ethical Economist: Duty and Virtue in the Scientific ProcessJonathan B. WightPART IV: THE ETHICAL ENTAILMENTS OF ECONOMIC THEORY1. General Issues9. Ethics in Relation to Economics, Ecology, and EschatologyHerman Daly10. Poisoning the Well, or How Economic Theory Damages Moral ImaginationJulie A. Nelson11. Economists' Odd Stand on the Positive-Normative Distinction: A Behavioral Economics ViewJohn B. Davis12. The Complex Ethical Consequences of ?Simple? Theoretical ChoicesRobert H. Frank13. Good, Evil, and Economic PracticeTomas Sedl??ek2. Economic Theory and the Great Recession14. Alternative Ethical Perspectives on the Financial Crisis: Lessons for EconomistsIrene van Staveren15. Economists' Ethics in the Build-Up to the Great RecessionRobert H. WadePART V: ETHICAL ISSUES IN ECONOMIC RESEARCH1. Experimental Economics16. Ethics and Advances in Economic Science: The Role of Two NormsJingnan Chen, Angelina Christie, and Daniel Houser17. The Meaning of Deceive in Experimental Economic ScienceBart J. Wilson2. Econometrics18. Honesty and Integrity in EconometricsThomas Mayer19. Lady Justice v. Cult of Statistical Significance: Oomph-less Science and the New Rule of LawStephen T. Ziliak and Deirdre N. McCloskey3. Field Research20. Balancing Risk and Benefit: Ethical Tradeoffs in Running Randomized EvaluationsRachel Glennerster and Shawn Powers21. Conducting Ethical Economic Research: Complications from the FieldHarold Alderman, Jishnu Das, and Vijayenera Rao22. The Unprincipled Randomization Principle in Economics and MedicineStephen T. Ziliak and Edward R. Teather-Posadas4. Conflict of Interest23. Professional Disequilibrium: Conflict of Interest in EconomicsDennis F. Thompson24. Considerations on Conflicts of Interest in Academic EconomicsJessica Carrick-Hagenbarth and Gerald EpsteinPART VI: ETHICAL ISSUES IN APPLIED ECONOMICS1. Development25. Ethics, Economic Advice, and Economic PolicyJoseph E. Stiglitz26. Neoclassical Economics as the New Social Engineering: The Debacle of the Russian Post-Socialist TransitionDavid Ellerman27. The Ethics of Economic Development and Human DisplacementDes Gasper28. How Can We Better Address the Gaps in our Knowledge about Development Effectiveness?Martin Ravallion2. Economic Advising in Government and Beyond29. Confessions of a Policy AnalystRobert Nelson30. Ethics and the Government EconomistSusan Offutt31. The Ethics Problem: Toward a Second-Best Solution to the Problem of Economic ExpertiseDavid M. Levy and Sandra J. Peart32. First Tell No UntruthAlan Freeman3. Forensic Economics33. Ethical Issues in Forensic EconomicsRobert J. Thornton and John WardVII. ETHICAL ISSUES IN ECONOMIC EDUCATION34. Exposure and Dialogue Programs in the Training of Development Analysts and PractitionersRavi Kanbur35. Ethics and Learning in Undergraduate Economics EducationRobert F. Garnett, Jr.VIII. LOOKING AHEAD36. Creating Humble Economists: A Code of Ethics for EconomistsDavid Colander37. Codes of Ethics for Economists, Pluralism, and the Nature of Economic KnowledgeSheila C. Dow