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Intro -- Preface -- Contents -- Manfred on His 75th Birthday -- Economics and Philosophy -- Three Types of Dramatic Irony -- 1 The Definitions of Dramatic Irony -- 2 The Limits of Doxastic Theory -- 3 The Meaning Theory of Dramatic Irony: Sophocles' Ajax -- 4 The Irony of Missed Ironies in Euripides -- 5 The Two Functions of Dramatic Irony -- 6 The Roots of Dramatic Irony -- References -- Defence is of Much More Importance than Opulence-Adam Smith on the Political Economy of War -- 1 Introduction -- 2 Stages of Civilization and Ways of Accumulating Wealth -- 3 A Short History of Warfare and the Process of Civilization -- 4 On the "Wisdom of the State" -- 5 Heroic Characters and the Demise of the "Impartial Spectator" -- 6 Concluding Remarks -- References -- Labor Economics -- Relative Absence Concerns, Positional Consumption Preferences and Working Hours -- 1 Introduction -- 2 Related Contributions -- 3 Model -- 4 Comparisons of Outcomes -- 4.1 Working Hours as Sole Choice Variable -- 4.2 Absence of Absence Externality -- 4.3 Simultaneous Existence of Consumption and Absence Externalities -- 5 Conclusions -- Appendix -- 1. Utility Maximum -- 2. Stability of Market Equilibrium -- 3. Pareto-Efficient Allocation -- 4. Alternative Specification of Preferences -- 5. Proof of Proposition 2 -- 6. Sick Pay -- 7. Proof of Proposition 3 -- References -- Power, Responsibility and Social Policy: The Impact of Basic Income in a Competitive Experimental Labor Market -- 1 Introduction -- 2 Investigating the Impact of Basic Income in Experimental Labor Markets -- 2.1 Results From the Field and From the Lab -- 2.2 Competition in Gift Exchange Games -- 3 Modeling the Effect of Basic Income on Wages and Effort Under Competition -- 4 Experimental Design -- 5 Results and Analysis -- 5.1 Description of the Dataset -- 5.2 Wage Offers and Effort Levels -- 6 Discussion.

"Land grabbing" or, less emotionally charged, large-scale land acquisitions (LSLA), which occur mainly in the Global South, have become the center of a heated political and academic debate. So far, economists have mostly abstained from this debate. This may possibly be explained by the fact that they view these kind of deals in land property primarily as an opportunity for improved local economic development in poor countries. Arguably, foreign investors are then assumed to be able to utilize arable, but mostly idle land more efficiently than locals (cf., e.g., Deininger/Byerlee, 2011). At the same time, critics (mostly from other disciplines) claim that these very land deals have highly detrimental effects on local populations, especially smallholders, as neither governments nor international investors typically care much about these people's interests and do not honor their often informal land-use rights (cf., e.g., Cotula, 2011). They claim that this may then endanger the local people's livelihoods. [.]

At first sight, modern economics and justice seem not to fit together. Whereas the former primarily deals with individual self-interest and extrinsic incentives, the latter deals with other-regardingness and intrinsic social motives. However, recent findings, mainly from the field of experimental economics, reintroduce aspects of justice into economic modeling. Other theories, evolutionary models for instance, take up the key findings and apply the economic rationale in order to find out why human traits which apparently run counter to individual self-interest may have survived. In this introductory note we date this discussion back to the days of Adam Smith and argue that he already set the basis for such a discussion. Apparently, Smith was well aware that principles of justice and the market may, at times, be contradictory. However, he also found that both served a common purpose, or so we will argue. We further aim at bringing together Smith's classical position with recent ideas, for instance Binmore's theory of justice, and see whether the one can be fruitful for the other. [Copyright Elsevier B.V.]