An Ontology of Economic Objects

Applied Technologies and Innovations, 2011

Processing data is one of the main concerns of almost every field of study which deals with information. But today with the growing data and information a new delicate problem arises: "processing" knowledge. One way to start solving it is by categorizing knowledge; then trying to manage these knowledge categories according to the interest of the field of study; and finally implementing them into a problem-solving platform such as a software program, a web page or merely in a new algorithm. Ontologies come in handy in one of the key links of this chain: knowledge management. In this paper we show the how to use ontologies for data and knowledge management and how they can be applied in formalizing economic concepts. We did this classification according to Menger"s ideas.

2002

The contemporary academic disciplines of Philosophy and Economics by and large do not concern themselves with questions pertaining to the ontology of economic reality; by economic reality I mean the kinds of economic phenomena that people encounter on a daily basis, the central ones being economic transactions, money, prices, goods and services. Economic phenomena also include other aspects of economic reality such as economic agents, (including corporations, individual producers and consumers), commodity markets, banks, investments, jobs and production. My investigation of the ontology of economic phenomena begins with a critical examination of the accounts of theorists and philosophers from the past, including Plato, Aristotle, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Marx, Simmel and Menger. Here I discuss various themes that have emerged from these writings, including the metallism-chartalism debates and whether economic value is an objective or subjective notion. Then I turn to contemporary phil...

Joint Ontology Workshops, 2018

This paper develops some results of a study of philosophical and methodological prerequisites of economic knowledge, held by several researchers of Lomonosov Moscow State University in 2015-2017. This study was partly published in 2017 in the first Russian textbook for postgraduates of Lomonosov Moscow State University, "Philosophy and methodology of economics". The paper aims to light up some interesting and serious problems of economic ontology.

In the social sciences Tony Lawson has become a major figure of intellectual controversy on the back of juxtaposing two relatively simple and seemingly innocuous ideas. In two books and many papers he has argued first that success in science depends on finding and using methods, including modes of reasoning, appropriate to the nature of the phenomena being studied, and also that there are important differences between the nature of the objects of study of natural sciences and those of social science.

The article is dedicated to the analysis of philosophical understanding of the current economic world. In the existent interpretations of the economic world physical, biological and psychological approaches predominate. They highlight certain important aspects of economic realm, but do not provide a complex global picture of it. The philosophical method used in the article structuralizes the economic world in the context of Aristotelian doctrine concerning economic reality and economic being and Heidegger"s fundamental ontology. The main attention is paid to the ontological and epistemological aspects of the economic world. The structure of the economic world is considered as a whole and in its dimensions (the economic being, the economic existence, the economic actuality, and the art of economics). Economic being is considered as a ground, prerequisite, economic background of economic existence. It is resumed that the qualitative analysis of the economic world has to be based on the philosophical, general scientific and economic methodology. Philosophical methodology includes general principles of cognition and categorical structure of science (i.e., structural components) as well as a philosophical knowledge system (i.e., functional components). General scientific methodology is based on general scientific research principles. It includes all theoretical concepts used to all or the majority of scientific disciplines. Specific scientific methodology, economic methodology use appropriate methods, research principles, and procedures in economics. The art of economics (economic policy) is built on a basis of either the explanatory methodology or applied (engineering) methodology, with its precise tools of statistics, econometrics, and mathematics.

Global Perspectives

In this invited comment piece, I argue that the Lima de Miranda and Snower SAGE framework represents not just another “beyond GDP” alternative but is an important contribution to a larger shift underway in economics regarding our understanding of human behavior and the nature and purpose of economic systems. Recognizing this broader shift helps us see how SAGE might be strengthened and built upon. In this spirit, I suggest some starting points for strengthening the normative foundations of the SAGE framework, discuss an alternative interpretation of the welfare effects of inequality, propose further work on the “material gain” part of the framework, and and briefly suggest an alternative approach to SAGE’s utility maximizing decision model. I conclude that SAGE provides a framework for a very rich future research agenda.

Insights into Regional Development, 2020

The objective of this article is to propose what can be called a law of ontological reason in economics as opposed to the law of supply and demand. To do this, it uses a phenomenological approach that interprets economics in terms of primary ideas. To this end, it's defined the ontological reason and the space in which it is built in order to introduce the concept of demand of rights and not of consumption. In this context, the relationship that underlies an ontological reason which presupposes a different behavior from that of the law of supply and demand is then described. According to this approach, it is claimed that the latter leads to structural problems. It subordinates the general identity of a country to the interests of individuals, as it focuses on maximizing personal utility that is unrelated to the creation of the rights of men and women living in a context that contains them in a relational way.

In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in the development of ontologically well-founded conceptual models for Infor- mation Systems in areas such as Service Management, Accounting In- formation Systems and Financial Reporting. Economic exchanges are central phenomena in these areas. For this reason, they occupy a promi- nent position in modelling frameworks such as the REA (Resource-Event Action) ISO Standard as well as the FIBO (Financial Industry Business Ontology). In this paper, we begin a well-founded ontological analysis of economic exchanges inspired by a recent ontological view on the na- ture of economic transactions. According to this view, what counts as an economic transaction is based on an agreement on the actions that the agents are committed to perform. The agreement is in turn based on convergent preferences about the course of action to bring about. This view enables a unified treatment of economic exchanges, regardless the object of the transaction, and complies with the view that all economic transactions are about services. In this paper, we start developing our analysis in the framework of the Unified Foundational Ontology (UFO).

Money is so ever-present in modern life that we usually take its existence for granted. Financial crisis like the recent one in 2008 are significant alerts about the importance of money and finance. Having a clear understanding of the concepts on the finance domain is fundamental to figure out the evolution of the economy before innovations in the Finance Industry. This research aims at addressing these issues by investigating the conceptual foundations of money, grounded in the Unified Foundational Ontology and based on the literature review of the most relevant economic theories.

Reinforced concrete (RC) frames such as bare frames, soft story frames and completely infilled frames were considered for model in this study. Each frame was further considered as 6, 9, 12 and 15 story buildings. Soft story and infilled frames were provided with two types of masonry infill (Em = 1875 and 5625 N/mm2). Frames were subjected to harmonic ground motions of peak ground acceleration 1, 2 and 3 m/s2. Each acceleration was of 12 frequency levels starting from .25 to 3 Hz. The duration of the ground motions was taken as 5s and damping of RC buildings was assumed to be 5%. The study was nonlinear dynamic analysis of the models using ETABS 2013. Natural frequency, interstory drift ratio and time passed before collapse were considered to analyze the response of the RC frames. The UBC limitation on drift ratio for long period (≥.7s) structures is .02. The structures were assumed to fail at this drift ratio. After performing time history analysis, behaviors of the structures are compared. It was found that when subjected to ground motion infilled frames perform best. Strength of infill has effect on the response of frames under seismic loading and also on the natural frequencies of the frames. Completely infilled frames with higher strength infill performed better. Structures with higher number of story were found to sustain seismic loading for longer duration before failure. The response of soft story and infilled frames (12 and 15 story buildings) were found to be close if weak infills are used. When subjected to ground motions, frames were vulnerable to frequency level up to 1.5 Hz.