Economic science has developed towards positive economics. Scarce resources distributed as efficiently as possible. Market mechanism mediates supply and demand and determines the price. In the long run, all factors of production are variable, organizations or firms play no role. In the short run, organizations and households do play a role in traditional economic theory, as they are means to explain influence of exogenous variables on endogenous variables in case of change, and they take care of matching supply and demand. Today, many of the allocation transactions do not take place directly in the market. Most people are involved in organizations as employees and do not themselves engage in transactions in the market. If they do, they do so on behalf of the enterprise. In this regard it functions in the enterprise in a similar way: if marginal revenues exceed marginal costs a project can proceed or a product or service can be delivered.
This traditional representation of economic thinking positive economics is increasingly being questioned. In addition to positive economics, there is also normative economics: what is a just distribution of scarce resources in a given situation. From the Catholic tradition in particular, virtue ethics is put forward to answer the question of just distribution. Nudging can be used to entice people and organizations to adopt desired behavior. Normative economics is often associated with the government, the public sector and of public institutions. In the private sector, however, (enlightened) self-interest determines the economic transaction. In recent decades there has been more criticism of the classical homo economicus. From anthropology other human images are also presented, such as the homo amans (Van Nes, Nullens, & Heuvel, 2022).
I want to explore whether the concept of stewardship shines a useful light on the concept of justice for economists and whether it can serve as an undergirding idea of economic relations (within the concept of methodological individualism). I take my starting point from the stewardship approach (Davis, Schoorman, & Donaldson, 1997) as a complement to the traditional agent principal approach (Jensen & Meckling, 1976). Using path dependence as proposed by Williamson (Williamson, 2000), I want to explore if justice from stewardship theory brings positive and normative economics closer together. Using transaction cost economics, it should be possible to express outcomes in economic terms.
Bibliography
Davis, J. H., Schoorman, F. D., & Donaldson, L. (1997). Toward a stewardship theory of management. Academy of Management. The Academy of Management Review, 22(1), 20-47.
Jensen, M. C., & Meckling, W. H. (1976). Theory of the firm: Managerial behavior, agency costs and ownership structure. Journal of Financial Economics, 3(4), 305-360.
Van Nes, J., Nullens, P., & Heuvel, S. C. v. d. (2022). Relational anthropology for contemporary economics: a multidisciplinary approach. In Ethical economy, studies in economic ethics and philosophy, 2211-2723; volume 61.
Williamson, O. E. (2000). The new institutional economics: Taking stock, looking ahead. Journal of Economic Literature, 38(3), 595-613.