Faithful Economy – Details, episodes & analysis

This episode features another segment from the ACE panel on economic justice from the 2021 ASSA meetings. We start by hearing Enoch Hill’s presentation about the economic justice lessons that can be drawn from the Jubilee prescriptions from the Old Testament. Then I interview Enoch about his presentation and we dig into the arguments he raises. Along the way, we discuss the degree to which the Old Testament laws encouraged redistribution and capital accumulation, and the connection to education in our modern economy.

Enoch Hill is an associate professor of economics at Wheaton College, where he specializes in macroeconomics. He also serves as the secretary for the Association of Christian Economists, and one of the lead researchers behind the National Covid-19 Church Attendance Project (https://churchattendanceproject.org/).

Talking about economic justice requires some care and precision, particularly in a politically polarized time in history, and so I think it is important for economists to have conversations in which we bring our best work forward and think about what justice looks like in economic life. Each of the conversations in this series have exemplified the kinds of work that I think is really valuable, and this conversation is no exception.

Economic Justice and Jubilee by Enoch Hill. Faith & Economics, Spring 2021

Aquinas and the Market: Toward a Humane Economy, by Mary Hirschfeld (Harvard University Press, 2018). Those interested can also check out the review symposium on Hirschfeld’s book from the Fall 2019 issue of Faith & Economics.

This episode is the second in our series on economic justice, this time featuring Daniel Finn. We start with a recording of Dan’s presentation from our January panel, in which we asked four scholars to respond to the prompt: “What Does a Christian Vision for Economic Justice Require of United States Policy Regarding Taxation and Government Spending?” Dan’s response is also available in print in the Spring 2021 issue of Faith & Economics, and is titled “Four Myths Concerning Taxation and Government Spending.” After his presentation, which lasts about just under 12 minutes, we jump right into a conversation, recorded after, about the arguments that Dan raises.

Dan is the is a Professor of Theology and a Professor of Economics at St. John’s University in Minnesota. He is a former president of the Catholic Theological Society of America, the Society of Christian Ethics, and the Association for Social Economics. He is the author or editor of 12 books and numerous articles most of which operate at the intersection of theology, moral philosophy, and economics. I have been learning from his work for years, and have often used his essays in class, so it is a real pleasure for me to be able to have this conversation with him.

Our conversation starts out by talking about the nature of individual moral obligation in the economy and then delves into public policy, pragmatic and ideal priorities, and how we should think about the welfare state. Dan stakes out a progressive position but is keen to always hold to both our individual obligations to be virtuous and also our call to create a just society in which people’s basic needs are taken care of.

“Four Myths Concerning Taxation and Government Spending.” Faith & Economics, Spring 2021

Daniel Finn’s Page at St. John’s University

This episode is a conversation with Art Carden from Samford University. Art is an excellent scholar and a great popularizer of economic ideas. The occasion for our conversation is a new book that he has just published with the great economic historian Deidre McCloskey. The title is Leave Me Alone and I’ll Make You Rich: How the Bourgeois Deal Enriched the World. This book grows out of McCloskey’s 3-volume series on the Bourgeois Era but is aimed at a more popular audience. The book makes an entertaining and broad defense of liberalism writ large, both on material and spiritual grounds. It is provocative and thought-provoking, particularly if you are in the habit of thinking about economics only in material terms.

Art Carden is a professor of economics at Samford University, senior fellow at the American Institute for Economic Research, the beacon Center of Tennessee, and research fellow at the Independent Institute and at the Institute for Faith, Work, and Economics. He has written numerous scholarly articles and chapters about economic history, Walmart, economic freedom, and numerous other topics.

Leave Me Alone and I’ll Make You Rich (https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/L/bo61545999.html)

Art Carden’s Website (http://artcarden.com/)

Carden’s writing at Forbes (https://www.forbes.com/sites/artcarden/)

Deidre McCloskey’s Website (https://www.deirdremccloskey.com/books/index.php)

This episode features a conversation with Jordan Ballor, a senior research fellow at the Acton Institute. We take a deep dive into the ways that theologians and economists tend to disagree. Our starting point is an essay that Ballor wrote about the different interpretations of the word “scarcity.” We talk at length about the different starting assumptions that scholars work with, the differences in language, the difficulty of separating facts from value judgments, and more. This conversation is a bit specialized, but it is really important for understanding the foundational differences between economic thinking and theological thinking. Hopefully, this will serve as an accessible introduction to some of the thornier issues.

Jordan Ballor is a historian and a theologian, with a deep knowledge of reformation theologians, but his writing has covered many topics, including a fair bit of writing about economics and collaboration with economists. For the last few years, he has also been a postdoctoral fellow with the Moral Markets project, which we talk about a bit near the end of the show. He is the author of three books,  numerous articles and essays, and editor of a series of English translations of Abraham Kuyper’s work.

Here are some links to work that we reference in this episode:

Interdisciplinary Dialogue and Scarcity in Economic Terminology, by Jordan Ballor, Journal of Markets and Morality (https://www.marketsandmorality.com/index.php/mandm/article/view/1491)

Theology and Economics: A Match Made in Heaven? By Jordan Ballor, Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies.

Jordan J. Ballor’s work on Academia.edu (https://vu-nl.academia.edu/JordanBallor)

The Moral Markets Project (https://www.moralmarkets.org/)

A Value Judgement on Value Judgements Wilhelm Röpke. 1941. (https://www.marketsandmorality.com/index.php/mandm/article/view/1120)

Reckoning with Markets by James Halteman and Edd Noell, Oxford University Press, 2012.

Abraham Kuyper on “para-equality” in:

Christ and Material Needs (1895) [this will also appear in the final volume of the Kuyper series, On Charity and Justice] (https://www.marketsandmorality.com/index.php/mandm/article/view/74)

Jesus and the Economics of Scarcity by Grazina Bielousova, The Political Theology Network. (https://politicaltheology.com/jesus-and-the-economics-of-scarcity/)

In this episode, Steven McMullen interviews Greg Forster about two recent books that he has published. Greg is a political philosopher by training, but his work has spanned history, theology, economics, and political theory. He is the director of the Oikonomia Network, an organization that helps Christians think about theology and work. He is the author of a number of books and is also an assistant professor of faith and culture at Trinity International University.

As you will see as we talk, Greg is skeptical of the naturalistic or materialist framing that we economists often use in our work. That doesn’t mean that he wants to get rid of modern economics, though, he draws heavily and appreciatively on the work of social scientists in his writing and is a particular fan of the economics discipline.

Over the course of our conversation about his recent books, we talk about the kinds of theological themes that show up in the work of economists, the importance of history, the nature of political ideology, Keynesian thought, and consumerism.

Links to items mentioned in this podcast:

Economics: A Student’s Guide, Crossway, 2019 (Faith & Economics Review by Ken Elzinga, http://christianeconomists.org/2020/07/08/review-of-economics-a-students-guide/)

The Keynesian Revolution and Our Empty Economy: We’re All Dead, written with Victor Claar, Palgrave Macmillan, 2019 (Review Symposium in Faith & Economics, http://christianeconomists.org/2020/07/08/faith-economics-spring-2020/)

Video introducing the Oikonomia Network (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n60FAd_CeBc)

Oikonomia Network Website (https://oikonomianetwork.org/)

Reckoning with Markets: Moral Reflection in Economics, by James Halteman and Edd Noell, Oxford Univ. Press, 2012.

McMullen, Steven, and Todd P. Steen. “Does Current Economic Methodology Impose a Materialistic View of Work? Journal of Markets and Morality, 2017

Greg's latest book Human Flourishing: Economic Wisdom For a Fruitful Christian Vision of the Good Life (Wipf and Stock, 2020)

This episode is an introduction to the Association of Christian Economists. We talk about the history of the organization, including some of the big conversations that have animated scholars over the last 40 years, and a bit about what the Association is doing today. The guests are Edd Noell, current president of ACE, and Michael Anderson, our past president.

Edd Noell is a professor of economics at Westmont College, and specializes in the history of economic thought, labor market regulation, and Christian thought about economics. He is a longtime member and leader in the association of Christian Economists and has served on the editorial board of Faith & Economics, including as the book review editor for 22 years. He is the current president of ACE.

Michael Anderson is the Robert E. Sadler, Jr. Professor of economics and associate dean of the Williams School at Washington and Lee University. He specializes in international economics and trade. Also a longtime ACE member and contributor, Michael is a member of the editorial board of Faith & Economics was president of ACE from 2015 to 2018.

At one or two points in this conversation, we reference some of the debates that took place between economists in the association about the posture that Christian economists should have toward NeoClassical economic methodology. The best place to start to understand those conversations is the Spring 1994 issue of Faith & Economics (http://christianeconomists.org/1994/06/28/faith-economics-spring-1994/).

We also reference Paul Oslington's recent article critiquing Kuyperian economics, from the most recent issue, the article is currently available only to members.

This episode features an interview with Scott Cunningham about markets for prostitution and his book on causal inference.

Cunningham is a thoughtful scholar working at the cutting edge of empirical microeconomics. He is a professor of economics at Baylor University, a research fellow at the texas Hunger Initiative and at the Computational Justice Lab. He is also an associate editor at the Journal of Human Resources. He is the co-editor of the Oxford Handbook on the Economics of Prostitution, and as we discuss, the author of Causal Inference: The Mixtape, forthcoming from Yale University Press.

Our conversation covers his research on the changing technology of prostitution markets, the difficulty regulating these markets, and some discussion about what a Christian response should look like. We also discuss his forthcoming textbook on causal inference.

Scott Cunningham’s Website, which includes links to the papers we discuss in the episode. (https://www.scunning.com/)

The free early version of his causal inference textbook. (https://www.scunning.com/mixtape.html)

The website for Causal Inference: The Mixtape at Yale University Press, available for order in January 2021. (https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300251685/causal-inference)

This episode features Stephen Smith from Hope College. Smith talks about the place of China in the global economy, U.S. policy toward China, changes in Chinese governance, and the Chinese church. Smith grew up in Hong Kong and has visited China numerous times in adulthood, often traveling with undergraduate students. He is a close observer of Chinese politics, economics, and culture. With all of the China-related news over the last year, it seemed like a great time to corner Stephen and get his perspective on a whole range of related questions.

As a scholar, Smith specializes in international trade, growth, and development.  He is also a leader in the Association of Christian Economists, currently serving as Vice President.

Stephen Smith's Hope College webpage. (https://hope.edu/directory/people/smith-stephen/index.html)

Economic Growth: Unleashing the Potential of Human Flourishing, by Stephen Smith, Edd Noell, and Bruce Webb. (AEI Press, 2013) (https://www.amazon.com/Economic-Growth-Unleashing-Flourishing-Capitalism/dp/0844772569/)

Over the course of our conversation we referenced the following:

A Republic of Equals by Jonathan Rothwell (Princeton, 2019)

“A Letter from Hong Kong” by Peter Baehr (Quillette, 9/3/2016) (https://quillette.com/2019/09/03/a-letter-from-hong-kong/)

In this quick trailer for the podcast, I give you a taste of what we have planned for the show. Check it out, and then move on to our first episode right away.

In this episode, Steven McMullen interviews economist Bruce Wydick about his recent book Shrewd Samaritan: Faith, Economics, and the Road to Loving our Global Neighbor (Thomas Nelson, 2019). (https://www.thomasnelson.com/9780785221524/shrewd-samaritan/)

Bruce is a Professor of Economics and the director of the Program in International and Development Economics at the University of San Francisco. He is also affiliated with the Kellogg Institute at the University of Notre Dame, the Center for effective global action at Berkley, and is helping build an institute for poverty and development studies with Westmont College in San Francisco. He is also a founding director of the non-profit Mayan partners.

Wydick is a real leader and exemplar for Christians in the economics profession. His work is focused on improving the lives of those in poverty around the world, and he has made a name for himself as a creative scholar.

In this episode, we talk broadly about what works and what doesn't work in global economic development. Wydick makes a strong case for holistic interventions that support the whole person, and he aptly connects this approach with his Christian faith.

For a guide to much of Bruce's work, check out his personal webpage. (https://sites.google.com/a/usfca.edu/wydick/home)

Here is the study about child sponsorships that we discuss in this conversation (https://bit.ly/3cIeNdL), see also a blog post about it at the World Bank (https://blogs.worldbank.org/developmenttalk/does-child-sponsorship-pay-adulthood).

And finally, a recent paper by Bruce that I have found valuable in my own work. (https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6xb8f996)