Agency and Causal Explanation in Economics

Peter Róna was born in Hungary in 1942. He emigrated to the United States in 1956, obtained his B.A. degree in economic history (cum laude) from the University of Pennsylvania in 1964, and his law degree from Oxford University (First Class) in 1964. He was an associate of the Washington, D.C, law firm, Arnold & Porter and counsel to the US Department of Commerce before becoming the personal assistant of Lord Richardson, Governor of the Bank of England. He joined the Schroder Group in 1969 as the General Counsel of its operations in the United Sates, and became the President and Chief Executive of the IBJ Schroder Bank & Trust co. in 1985. Shortly after the collapse of the Berlin Wall he returned to Hungary, where he managed an investment fund. In 2003 he joined the faculty of Eötvös Lóránd University where he taught public international law. In 2006 he was made an Honorary Professor of the University. He joined the teaching staff of Blackfriars Hall in 2009, where he teaches an introductory course in economics and a more advanced one on the philosophical foundations of the social sciences. His published articles include a study of the Euro and an examination of the philosophical foundations of economics.

Preface.- Introduction.- Part I Theory.- Nadine Elzein: Free Will and Empirical Arguments for Epiphenomenalism.- Stephen Pratten: Causality, Agency and Change.- Jason Blakely: How Economics Becomes Ideology: The Uses and Abuses of Rational Choice Theory.- William Child: Economics, Agency, and Causal Explanation.- Part II Praxis.- Richard Conrad and Peter Hunter: Why Aquinas Would Agree That Human Economic Behaviour Is Largely Predictable.- Paul Clough: Agency, Time and Morality: An Argument from Social and Economic Anthropology.- Scott Meikle: The Switch from Agency to Causation in Marx.- Margaret S. Archer: Social Morphogenesis: Critical Realism's Explanatory Approach.- Jonathan Price: Grotius's Theological anthropology and modern contract doctrine.