Review of Altug Yalcintas, Intellectual Path Dependence in Economics: Why economists do not reject refuted theories, Routledge, 2016, hb, xiv + 173 pages, ISBN 978-1-138-01617-0

Abstract

Review of Altug Yalcintas, Intellectual Path Dependence in Economics: Why economists do not reject refuted theories, Routledge, 2016, hb, xiv + 173 pages, ISBN 978-1-138-01617-0This book's main interrogation, 'why should economists change their minds?' (p. 29), is apparently trivial. After all, scholars of all propensities find their raison d'etre in the capacity to shape their minds along the path to knowledge. The actual practice of economists (pp. 29-31) shows indeed that this presupposition can be valid. But the author, a historian and philosopher of economics at the University of Ankara (Turkey) [1], makes every effort to convince his reader that the question is subtle (subtler, anyway than the subtitle suggests) and that it deserves thorough attention because changing one s mind is deliberative and processual rather than merely inevitable in the advancement of science.The whole argument rests on the presumed survival of 'unfit' explanations, errors that are not dislodged by mere academic dignity or decency. A perfect market of ideas ought to perform the 'function to fix errors fully' (p. 9), but this idealistic environment does not exist for two reasons. Firstly, scientists (economists) are not always rational and sciences (economics) are not always self-corrective, despite impeccable behaviour on behalf of researchers. Secondly, science is an economic activity and hence can be explained in economic terms: giving up a theorem is costly in intellectual and possibly monetary terms and may not be perceived as the best option given the low benefits it provides to the researcher. So, the economists do change their minds, but in the process they get immersed in seemingly never-ending battles of ideas on the one hand, and questionable research practices (QRP) on the other hand, with the effect that decentralized mechanisms of self-correction (e.g. open debate, peer-review, replication, or reproduction) do not always work.Established results in economics may be a result of 'powerful institutions' and discretionary financial resources (e.g. military or corporate funds) driving research to predefined objectives (pp. 8, 15-17). For Stanley Jevons, David Ricardo and John Stuart Mill were 'wrong-headed' men who put economics on a wrong track, unable to understand the 'true doctrines' (p. 15). Some original works in economics, from contributors such as Adam Smith, Karl Marx, and Joseph Schumpeter, are tainted by plagiarism (p. 16), ideologically biased editing (pp. 54-55), and external corrections (p. 54), respectively. Others are tainted by faulty handling of methodological shortcuts such as statistical tests and software packages (pp. 16-17). In short, the market's working is imperfect: economics is at times a provider of 'manipulated and erroneous ideas' (p. xi). One of the author's favourite cases of artificial idea selection, and the books leitmotif, is Ronald Coase's problem of social cost. The case is aptly chosen: besides making for a relaxing read, it involves a convoluted narrative of accidental discovery, misleading interpretation, unwarranted citations of the original work, and institutional ideologization on behalf of economists.The book's title reveals the author's method of construing a rational criticism of the undesirable effects of ignoring negative externalities (e.g. 'misrepresentations of ideas' (p. 8)) of the scientific conduct. Intellectual path dependence (IPD) is key in understanding why the market of ideas fails. The author dismantles the mechanism of knowledge production in a sequence of three steps. First, the 'social cost of knowledge production', or 'epistemic cost' (EC), appears in the form of harm done by QRP to the intellectual environment - that is, a diminished 'individual and collective ability of scholars to produce a sustainable environment' (p 48). Within a suigeneris cost-benefit analysis in epistemology, this epistemic cost adds to private costs associated with scholarly production, such as cost of access to knowledge, costs of writing research proposals, collaboration costs, etc. …