A Perspective on the Current State of Macroeconomic Theory

William Barnett

No 201218, WORKING PAPERS SERIES IN THEORETICAL AND APPLIED ECONOMICS from University of Kansas, Department of Economics

Abstract: Historically, microeconomics was the domain of scientific methodology in economics, while macroeconomics attracted less mathematically oriented economists. In recent years, the level of sophistication of macroeconomics has grown dramatically, and that field now attracts many of the most mathematically oriented economists. Nevertheless, the field's set of shared views (i.e., maintained hypothesis) has not grown. The purpose of the scientific method is to permit the maintained hypothesis within a field to grow by establishing a rigorous methodology for deductively deriving and empirically testing hypotheses. The field of macroeconomics has failed that test of scientific success during precisely the decades of most rapid growth in the use of scientific methodology. It is argued that the source of the paradox lies in the fact that the inroads of science in macroeconomics have been asymmetric. Central to the definition and objectives of macroeconomics is dimension reduction and dynamics. Rigorous dimension reduction is impossible without formal aggregation, and complex dynamics is impossible without nonlinearity. Yet applications of formal aggregation theory and nonlinear dynamics to macroeconomics have progressed very slowly, at the time that scientific methodology in other areas of macroeconomics have advanced rapidly. This asymmetry explains the paradox.

Pages: 20 pages
Date: 2012-09, Revised 2012-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hpe and nep-mac
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Related works:
Chapter: Perspective on the Current State of Macroeconomic Theory (2000)
Working Paper: A Perspective on the Current State of Macroeconomic Theory (1996)
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