“Tin-eared economists [have failed] to take moral complexity seriously, which is why there is still an urgent need for a book like The Price of Our Values…The Price of Our Values is a short book that manages to range across many of the issues where traditional economists’ moral judgments fail society most egregiously…By the end, the nonexpert reader is likely to be wary of the simple-minded economist touting efficiency as the solution to society’s most pressing problems. Economists, meanwhile, will have learned that there is good reason to take seriously the complexity and plurality of the moral landscape in our quest to promote social betterment—not as it is defined by us, but as it is defined by those we seek to serve."

Science

"Unlike everyday folk, economists like to separate their economic choices from moral ones. Their moral toolkit is utilitarianism. Here [the authors] set out not to ignore values such as compassion, liberty and fairness, but to argue that to be fully ethical, our moral decisions must confront their cost implications. Their hope is that they can offer 'a framework for processing moral values while taking economic constraints into account.' Now there's a brave endeavor."

New Scientist

“The Price of Our Values is a hugely interesting and important book which draws from a wide range of disciplines beyond economics—including philosophy, sociology, and psychology. The authors highlight the deep flaws inherent in consequentialism and utilitarianism that are fundamental to most neoclassical economics, and they offer ideas as to how and why a broader sense of morality must become fundamental to economics analysis.”

Rebecca M. Henderson | Harvard University

“Economists like to separate economic choices from moral ones, but ordinary, everyday people do not. The Price of Our Values makes a compelling theoretical and empirical case for why the economists’ position is untenable in the modern age.”

Luigi Zingales | University of Chicago and cohost of Capitalisn’t

“Landier and Thesmar provide a clear approach on integrating economic and moral arguments into a unified framework. There is much to learn from both their analysis and clever examples.”

Andrei Shleifer | coauthor of "A Crisis of Beliefs: Investor Psychology and Financial Fragility"