Ethics, Justice and Economy

This group is part of the interdisciplinary group Ethics, Justice, and Economics of Universidad de la República created in 2005, which brings together researchers from the Department of Practical Philosophy of the School of Humanities and Educational Sciences) and Instituto de Economía. It studies normative and empirical aspects, with an emphasis on justice and the interaction of public policies with preference formation as well as the social phenomena that cannot be reduced to individual terms.

The team's early work delved deeper into the capabilities approach, focusing on the concepts of agency, autonomy, and adaptive preferences. Subsequently, the thematic agenda diversified considerably. Currently, the team is working on several projects to investigate the stigma associated with poverty and the people dependent on state assistance. They also study universal income and guaranteed employment policies to address the issues of precarious labor, social cohesion and solidarity, aspirations, socially extended autonomy models, and local and regional perspectives on inequality and distributive justice. For more information, click here.

The group has developed several projects to communicate research results. Recently, it has finished the project called “Beliefs, perceptions and attitudes about public income tranfers in Uruguay. Promotting the public debate about social policies, meritocracy and poverty“, financied by the Art. 2 Fund to the Understanding of General Interest Topics of CSIC. As part of this activity, a book and a series of videos has been prepared, which gather its main conclusions. Those videos can be watched here.

Lines of research

Stigma, autonomy, and public policies

Conceptual, normative, and empirical analysis of the notion of stigma to poverty and to those who receive public transfers (Clemente Estable ANII Fund Project, carried out with the EJE Udelar group).
Relevance analysis of some versions of Basic Income and State Guaranteed Employment and new redistributive policy designs (I+D Project, CSIC, carried out jointly with researchers from the Inequality and Poverty group).
Models of agency and autonomy in the framework of social policies.
Analysis of the effects of cash transfer programs on female empowerment and intra-household expenditure distribution for the case of Uruguay.

Preference by status and public policies

Analysis of positional consumption decisions, externalities, and public income transfers for the Uruguayan case.
Positionality of goods and their welfare implications.
Intergenerational transmission of status preferences and economic aspirations
Positional consumption and preferences for redistribution

Ideas on inequality and justice in Uruguay and Latin America