The Role of Values of Economists and Economic Agents in Economics: A Necessary Distinction

The distinction between the value judgments of economists and those of economic agents is not clear in the literature of welfare economics. In this article, I show that the importance of making this distinction lies in determining not only whether economists can make value judgments in their professional work, but also determine how value judgments may be crucial to justify the economic agents' preferences. I consider the Interpersonal Comparisons of Utility to discuss this distinction, specifically the analysis of Harsanyi's impartial observer theorem, which provides a framework to justify that value judgments of economists and economic agents have to be properly identified. I suggest that it is essential to have a theoretical framework to make this distinction. For this purpose, I focus on two approaches that can be useful: Sen's classification of value judgments and Mongin's theses about value neutrality in economics.