| This dissertation makes the case for an economics of science, that is, for using economic ideas to theorize about science, especially its agents (scientists), its output (scientific knowledge), and its internal rules (scientific institutions). An economics of science offers a solution to a problem that plagues both traditional and revisionist theories of science--how self-interested, fallible agents can produce the collectively beneficial outcome of reliable scientific knowledge--and thereby suggests a remedy for a central methodological dispute concerning the efficacy of science.;Science studies and economic methodology are introduced in the context of scientific goals and standards of appraisal. Economics as a science is considered in light of its methods and its unique status among the different sciences. The philosophy of science and the revisionist responses to it are surveyed, indicating the intellectual antecedents that underwrite the current dispute in economic methodology.;Revisionist ideas in the "new" economic methodology, particularly rhetorical economics, are critically reviewed and a case is made against its epistemological positions on scientific knowledge and on the nature and function of scientific standards. Amendments are proposed toward an economic view of science, with its more robust explanation for successful science and for the scientific institutions that, in part, enable that success.;A Smithian economics is developed, which entails agents who are rational but fallible, self-interested but prudent, and which emphasizes institutions--rules of thumb, norms, conventions, standards--as decision-making resources when optimality is undefined, unattainable, or undesirable. Institutions are defined, discussed, and explained. Conceiving of science as a market-like process, scientific institutions are examined as evolved responses to market failures and other incentive problems that arise in knowledge production.;A case study of the recent minimum-wage controversy in economics is employed to identify and elaborate upon working institutions in the science of economics. The standards identified offer concrete instances of institutions as explained by the economics-of-science framework and evidence against claims that scientific standards are too ephemeral, too tacit, or too variable to permit their articulation. |
