Date of Award

1-1-2019

Document Type

Masters Thesis

Degree Name

M.A.

Organizational Unit

College of Arts Humanities and Social Sciences, Economics

First Advisor

Robert Urquhart, Ph.D.

Keywords

Development, Economic, Finance, Investing, Responsible

Abstract

This thesis examines social responsibility within a capitalist economy by investigating socially responsible investing and, tangentially, corporate social responsibility. These concepts have been at the heart of economic and legal debates for hundreds of years, with no clearly defined consensus regarding how to account for multi-stakeholder welfare inside the market system. This point is brought to life by analyzing two dominant twentieth-century economic periods, 1945-1975/79 and post-1980, through the deliberations of Keynesian economics and Milton Friedman.

This thesis postulates that since the 2008 global financial crisis, a new (i.e. third) economic period is taking shape, ushered in by both the ill-effects of late twentieth-century policies and changing societal norms regarding for what and to whom a capitalist economy can and should be responsible. By utilizing the concept of 'voice,' as developed in the writings of economist Albert O. Hirschman, greater inclusiveness in economic development is being considered inside the market system through suggested qualitative parameters beyond the current quantitative measurement criteria of GDP. This thesis thus claims that the rules of the game are changing, with shareholders having both economic and legal precedent to influence, through voice, market behavior toward multi-stakeholder concerns.

Publication Statement

Copyright is held by the author. User is responsible for all copyright compliance.

Rights Holder

Eileen M. Hoffmann

Provenance

Received from ProQuest

File Format

application/pdf

Language

en

File Size

101 p.

Discipline

Economic theory, Finance, Economic history

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