Journal of Economic Methodology最新文献

{"title":"The intrinsic complexity of collective choice a review of making better choices. design, decisions, and democracy","authors":"O. Gomes","doi":"10.1080/1350178X.2023.2206640","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1350178X.2023.2206640","url":null,"abstract":"The key element structuring and sustaining social and economic relations is collective decision-making, i","PeriodicalId":46507,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Economic Methodology","volume":"3 1","pages":"269 - 272"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2023-04-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"87140317","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Is economics credible? A critical appraisal of three examples from microeconomics","authors":"S. Muller","doi":"10.1080/1350178X.2023.2202682","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1350178X.2023.2202682","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Whether economics warrants public trust depends on the extent to which assertions by economists can be deemed credible. Three examples from microeconomics are examined to assess how the discipline performs in this regard. First, a purely theoretical argument with broad conceptual implications: a quasi-evolutionary argument for rational choice based on the notion of money pumps. Second, a modelling-related claim with significant social implications: economists’ objection to minimum wages based on a simple supply-demand model. Third, methodological choices with implications for all empirical work in microeconomics: the recent proclamation of a ‘credibility revolution’ in applied microeconomics through the use of experimental and quasi-experimental methods. These are assessed against proposed criteria for credibility: epistemic validity, epistemic reliability, and epistemic reflexivity. On the basis of the performance of the discipline against these criteria on the examples considered, I conclude that public distrust of economics and economists can be well-founded.","PeriodicalId":46507,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Economic Methodology","volume":"33 1","pages":"157 - 175"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2023-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84653731","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The soul of economics: editorial","authors":"Catherine Herfeld, C. Lisciandra, C. Martini","doi":"10.1080/1350178X.2023.2209763","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1350178X.2023.2209763","url":null,"abstract":"The Financial Crisis of 2007–2009 has been one of the worst economic crises since the Great Depression of the 1930s. In addition to directly impacting the economy, it had substantial ramifications also for economics as a science (Colander et al., 2011; Kirman, 2010; Lawson, 2009). In its aftermath, there has been considerable soul-searching within the economics profession that concerned, among other things, its methodological and conceptual core, the lack of trust in the epistemic qualities of economic theorizing and concerns about its function as a policy science. This soul-searching was triggered mainly by questions about the potential causes of the crisis and the failure of economics in predicting its occurrence. The claim was that the discipline had failed to accurately predict the crisis and explain its causes, and to offer useful policy recommendations to help its remedy (e.g. Akerlof et al., 2014; Allen & Carletti, 2010; Krugman, 2011). Some critics even questioned the scientific status of economics itself (e.g. Taleb, 2010). This soul-searching led to discussions and a fundamental reassessment of the central assumptions, methodologies, and principles underlying economic theories and models. Scholars from within and from outside economics were puzzled about what was quickly perceived as a lack of performance of economics as a scientific enterprise and the discipline’s failure to fulfill its expected social function (Krugman, 2011). This also revived several more general methodological debates about the usefulness of traditional as well as more recent theoretical, conceptual, and empirical tools used by economists to explain and predict economic phenomena and to suggest policy measures towards enabling social change. Those debates did not only remain within academic circles, but spilled over also to the policy realm, and to the broader public. Indeed, they engendered a deep skepticism in some corners concerning economists’ claims to economic expertise and led to widespread mistrust in their ability to assess and recommend good policies. Today, fifteen years after the crisis, it is time to take stock and ask the question where economics currently stands regarding this soul-search. This special issue provides a platform to present and reflect on the current status, and on some of the main arguments and outcomes of this search. Largely consisting of papers that were presented at a conference entitled The Soul of Economics and organized by Catherine Herfeld, Chiara Lisciandra, and Carlo Martini at the University of Zurich (Switzerland) in 2019, it provides a sketch of debates engaged with the contemporary state of economics fifteen years after the Financial Crisis. The articles collected here reflect in different ways upon economics in its current state in light of recent criticisms and calls for reform. They show that although economics’ conceptual, methodological, epistemological, and policy dimensions have been questioned throughout its exis","PeriodicalId":46507,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Economic Methodology","volume":"2012 1","pages":"71 - 79"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2023-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88945765","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The case against formal methods in (Austrian) economics: a partial defense of formalization as translation","authors":"Alexander Linsbichler","doi":"10.1080/1350178X.2023.2202669","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1350178X.2023.2202669","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Mainstream economics has been accused of excessive mathematization, whereas the rejection of mathematical and other formal methods is often cited as a crucial trait of Austrian economics. Based on a systematic discussion of potential benefits and drawbacks of formalization, this paper corroborates legitimate concerns that predominant types of mathematization induce a shift of attention away from the key concepts of Austrian economics. Taking this shift to the extreme, predominant modes of mathematization tend to accompany a detachment from ‘reality’ incompatible with Austrian pleas for realisticness. Contrary to popular prejudice however, the most prominent representatives of the Austrian School including Carl Menger, Ludwig Mises, Friedrich Hayek, Israel Kirzner, and Peter Boettke neither provide a justification for a wholesale rejection of formalization nor actually reject it. Adequate formalization can serve as a remedy for lacking logical and semantic rigor in standard mathematical economics as well as in murky verbal chains of reasoning.","PeriodicalId":46507,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Economic Methodology","volume":"5 1","pages":"107 - 121"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2023-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"72961293","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"What makes economics special: orientational paradigms","authors":"P. Hoyningen-Huene, H. Kincaid","doi":"10.1080/1350178X.2023.2192231","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1350178X.2023.2192231","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT From the mid-1960s until the late 1980s, the well-known general philosophies of science of the time were applied to economics. The result was disappointing: none seemed to fit. This paper argues that this is due to a special feature of economics: it possesses ‘orientational paradigms’ in high number. Orientational paradigms are similar to Kuhn’s paradigms in that they are shared across scientific communities, but dissimilar to Kuhn’s paradigms in that they are not generally accepted as valid guidelines for further research. As will be shown by several examples, orientational paradigms provide economics with common points of reference that support its epistemic coherence and make scientific discourse more easily possible across school boundaries. With the help of systematicity theory, a newer general philosophy of science, one can further elucidate the role of orientational paradigms with regard to scientific progress.","PeriodicalId":46507,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Economic Methodology","volume":"14 1","pages":"188 - 202"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2023-03-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74470232","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The Homer economicus narrative: from cognitive psychology to individual public policies","authors":"Guilhem Lecouteux","doi":"10.1080/1350178X.2023.2192222","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1350178X.2023.2192222","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT A common narrative among some behavioural economists and policy makers is that experimental psychology highlights that individuals are more like Homer Simpson than the Mr Spock imagined by neoclassical economics, and that this justifies policies aiming to ‘correct’ individual behaviours. This narrative is central to nudging policies and suggests that a better understanding of individual cognition will lead to better policy prescriptions. I argue that this Homer economicus narrative is methodologically flawed, and that its emphasis on cognition advances a distorted view of public policies consisting in fixing malfunctioning individuals, while ignoring the characteristics of the socio-economic environment that influence individuals’ behaviours.","PeriodicalId":46507,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Economic Methodology","volume":"12 1","pages":"176 - 187"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2023-03-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88418134","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Objectivity in economics and the problem of the individual","authors":"John B. Davis","doi":"10.1080/1350178x.2023.2181374","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1350178x.2023.2181374","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":46507,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Economic Methodology","volume":"40 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"77385365","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A controversy about modeling practices: the case of inequity aversion","authors":"Alexandre Truc, Dorian Jullien","doi":"10.1080/1350178X.2023.2180153","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1350178X.2023.2180153","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This paper studies the controversy on Fehr and Schmidt's model of inequity aversion. It borrows insights from disciplines such as philosophy and the sociology of science that have specialized in studying scientific controversies. Our goal is to contribute to the historical and methodological literature on behavioral economics, which happens to have neglected behavioral economists' research on social preferences. Our analysis of the controversy reveals some new insights about the relation of behavioral economics with other sub-fields in economics, as well as with other disciplines.","PeriodicalId":46507,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Economic Methodology","volume":"249 1","pages":"203 - 227"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2023-02-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76989961","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"The dawn of everything: a new history of humanity","authors":"Michiru Nagatsu","doi":"10.1080/1350178X.2023.2170858","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1350178X.2023.2170858","url":null,"abstract":"What is left to be said about David Graeber and David Wengrow’s book, The Dawn of Everything (hereafter, TDoE)? Reviews of it have appeared in a great many mass-media publications. Although many trend to the hyperbolic (e.g., “What If Everything You Learned about Human History Is Wrong?” New York Times, October 31, 2021), the amount of conversation the book has generated within and beyond the discipline is impressive. This review is written by an archaeologist and for archaeologists, and it is informed by a semester’s worth of conversations among faculty members and graduate students in archaeology and history at the University of Georgia. TDoE is a sweeping ideological and intellectual project that has both swagger and heft. With nearly 700 pages including notes and references, its goal is nothing less than a fundamental transformation of how we think about the human past. The book was written to be public facing. It will be best enjoyed by archaeologists who can avoid getting caught up in the dog-whistle critiques that inevitably emerge when the authors play fast and loose with archaeological data. TDoE will sit comfortably alongside other public-facing grand narratives: Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel (1997); Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens (2011); James Scott’s Against the Grain (2017); and Graeber’s own Debt (2011). However, it will also find company among more radical scholarship that seeks to deconstruct teleological narratives about social evolution and inequality. The late David Graeber was an iconic activist, thought leader, and prolific intellectual, who moved seamlessly between public and academic realms. It is sad that Graeber did not live to see this book’s reception. David Wengrow is an archaeologist with a strong background in African and Middle Eastern archaeology, and a publication catalog that reflects a history of grappling with concepts central to the project (i.e., origins, civilization). Wengrow’s foreword explains that this book was the outcome of 10 years of dialogue between him and Graeber and was intended to be the first of multiple creative collaborations. The first chapter introduces the central premise: narratives about human history that forefront inequality and a step-wise history of human evolution are dangerously wrong. They have made seem natural a modern global political system in which inequality is understood as the natural outcome of social evolution. Where did we go wrong? And how did we get stuck there? The second chapter takes a deep dive into a core element of their thesis: the “Indigenous critique” of European society. The proponent of the Indigenous critique is Kandiaronk, a Huron-Wendat statesman whose purported views on religion, law, politics, personal freedom, and the refusal of arbitrary power formed the basis of Lahontan’s Dialogues and in turn profoundly influenced Enlightenment thinking in France and beyond. Although Kandiaronk was certainly a real person, there is a question about whether t","PeriodicalId":46507,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Economic Methodology","volume":"22 1","pages":"265 - 268"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2023-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84833680","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Comments on Nick Huntington–Klein's review ‘Pearl before economists: The Book of Why and empirical economics’","authors":"J. Pearl","doi":"10.1080/1350178X.2023.2170859","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/1350178X.2023.2170859","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This note aims to assist applied econometricians in understanding the tools of causal inference and to extend those discussed in Nick Huntington-Klein's review of The Book of Why.","PeriodicalId":46507,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Economic Methodology","volume":"123 1","pages":"63 - 67"},"PeriodicalIF":1.2,"publicationDate":"2023-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80703164","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}