ASU professor elected president of International Network for Economic Method

Tyler DesRoches, an assistant professor in the School of Sustainability and the School of Historical, Philosophical and Religious Studies at Arizona State University, was recently elected president of the International Network for Economic Method (INEM), the largest professional organization for philosophy and methodology of economics in the world.

“Becoming president-elect of INEM is a great honor,” DesRoches said. “I’m absolutely thrilled to begin working with the members, board and editors of the Journal of Economic Methodology — INEM’s journal, which is a top peer-reviewed journal among economic methodologists.”

DesRoches said that the disciplines of philosophy and economics are intertwined, and many of the world’s most highly regarded economic theorists were “first and foremost philosophers."

"Today, philosophers of economics focus on many topics, including rational choice theory, causation, ethics and the nature of economic models,” he said.

DesRoches, who is also a senior sustainability scholar in the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability and a project director in philosophy of economics at the Center for the Study of Economic Liberty, said he is one of a few philosophers and methodologists of economics working on sustainability issues.

“My own research has focused on the social-scientific approach to modeling sustainable development, human well-being in economics, the normative foundations of behavioral welfare economics, and the concept of ‘natural capital’ in ecological economics,” he said.

As president of INEM, DesRoches aims to “improve INEM’s constitution, grow the membership and host a top-notch conference at ASU during the fall of 2021.”

During the fall 2020 semester, DesRoches will be teaching a new undergraduate course titled “History and Philosophy of Science: Economics (from Aristotle to Thomas Robert Malthus)," and a graduate seminar, “Human Well-Being and Sustainability.”