Some Legacies of Robbins'Nature and Signifance of Economic Science

Richard George Lipsey ()

Discussion Papers from Department of Economics, Simon Fraser University

Abstract: The Abstract of your paper: This paper criticises three Robbinsian positions still often found in modern economics: (1) the methodology of intuitively obvious assumptions; (2) treating facts as illustrations rather than as tests of theoretical propositions; (3) assuming that theory provides universally applicable generalisations independent of the characteristics of individual economies and so are independent of specific historical processes. Two corollaries of point (3) are that theory cannot assist in explaining unique historical events such as the emergence of sustained growth in the West and that economists need not interest themselves in the details of the technologies that produce the nation's wealth.

Keywords: methodology; economic generalisations; measurement; positive economics; historical specificity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: B41 B31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hpe
Date: 2008-04
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