In this article, we consider the mainsprings of John Nevile’s many contributions to economics. John has repeatedly argued that because ‘economic actions, institutions and policies affect people’, they have an ethical dimension (Hawtrey and Nevile, 1986: 1), and he has stressed the importance of understanding the value judgements on which economics rests. His policy suggestions are aimed at improving social justice and the well-being of the most vulnerable. Apart from his deep knowledge of economic theory, his Christian faith provides an important foundation for his analysis, particularly of policy.

A recent contribution to research on age and well-being asserts that the impact of age on happiness is ‘u-shaped’ virtually everywhere. I evaluate that finding for European countries, considering whether it is robust to alternative methodological approaches. The analysis excludes control variables that are affected by age (noting that those variables are not antecedents of age) and explores the relationship via models that do not impose a quadratic functional form. The article shows that these alternative approaches do not produce a u-shape ‘everywhere’: u-shapes are evident for some countries, but for others, the pattern is quite different.

The major contribution of Oliver Williamson, who was a 2009 Nobel Prize co-Laureate in economics, consists of proposing a heuristic analysis of governance structures, namely, the firm, the market, and what he will later call the ‘hybrid forms’. This cardinal issue in organizational economics has made it possible to propose rigorous arbitration tools for the famous ‘make or buy’ decisions in modern market economies based on asset specificity and quasi-rents. However, Williamson's work goes far beyond these contributions alone. His contribution is based on a multidisciplinary theoretical background in building the science of organization. This is the important but sometimes neglected aspect of Williamson's work that I wish to highlight in this paper in memory of Williamson in regard to three major pieces on atmosphere (and informal organization), private ordering, and industrial pluralism. In doing so, I also propose reconsidering the different stages of Williamson's evolving science of organization from recent neo-institutional works.

The capability of borospherene to detect radioactive pollutants (radon and radium) is investigated utilizing density functional theory and nonequilibrium Green's function regime. The quantum transport is evaluated by calculating the density of states, chemical potential, transmission and molecular energy spectra, highest occupied molecular orbital (HOMO)–lowest unoccupied molecular orbital (LUMO) gap, electron densities, current–voltage curve, and differential and quantum conductance. LUMO-mediated transmission is observed in all the cases. The conduction considerably declines in B40 molecular junction doped with radioactive pollutants in comparison to pure B40 molecular junction. This decrease in conduction is due to reduced electron density and higher chemical potential in doped B40 junctions. Due to different values of current and differential conductance, we propose utilization of B40 in detecting the presence of radioactive pollutants in underground water. Also, all molecular junctions assay lifting of Coulomb blockade at equilibrium state; thus, these devices can be effectively utilized in single-electron transistor applications.

Leeson (2020) objects to the conflation of economics with applied econometrics, and argues that economics instead should be thought of as the implications of the assumption that individuals maximize, i.e. rational choice theory. But, narrowly defining economics in terms of method demands that we ignore alternative theoretical frameworks which potentially hold explanatory power about topics thought of as economics, all for the sake of a definition. I suggest that applying rational choice theory and applying econometrics became the comparative advantage for economists relative to other social scientists by accidents of history. These comparative advantages largely persist. It is reasonable to call applications of both rational choice theory and econometrics to topics outside conventional economic topics ‘economics’ simply because these applications remain the comparative advantage of economists.

In this paper, we analyse the difference between two types of behavioural policies – nudges and boosts. We distinguish them on the basis of the mechanisms through which they are expected to operate and identify the contextual conditions that are necessary for each policy to be successful. Our framework helps judging which type of policy is more likely to bring about the intended behavioural outcome in a given situation.

Economists have been blamed for their inability to forecast and address crises. This article attributes this inability to intertwined factors: the lack of a coherent definition of crises, the reference-class problem, the lack of imagination regarding the nature of future crises and sample-selection biases. Specifically, economists tend to adapt their views on crises to recent episodes, and omit averted and potential crises. Threshold-based definitions of crises run the risk of being ad hoc. Using historical examples, this article highlights some epistemological shortcomings of the current approach.

This paper provides a bird-eye overview of the history of spatial economic theory. It is organized around three main ideas (and authors): (i) land use and urban economics (Thünen), (ii) the nature of competition across space (Hotelling), and (iii) new economic geography and the emergence of economic agglomerations (Krugman).

This paper aims at providing a possible explanation for the seemingly peripheral role played by spatial economics in modern economic theory. It considers successively five points of view according to which space is introduced in economic models and assesses their contributions and limits.