The Rhetoric of Policy Relevance in International Economics

William Milberg

Economics Working Paper Archive from Levy Economics Institute

Abstract: This paper addresses the link between the generation of economic knowledge and economic policy conclusions. Focusing on the case of research in international trade, I establish a taxonomy of rhetorical practices used to make such a link. The flexibility observed in these practices contrasts markedly with the rigidity of the conventions of theoretical and empirical knowledge creation. A survey of articles on international trade from four major journals from 1988-1992 shows that most policyrelevant research is entirely theoretical, but the incidence of rhetorical practices depends on the nature of the research method (theoretical or empirical), and the journal in which the research is published. The survey data support the view that the flexiblity of rhetorical practices is integral to the legitimation of the knowledge generated by international trade economists.

Keywords: Rhetoric; methodology; trade policy; new international economics; epistemology (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: B41 F13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1994-06
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.levyinstitute.org/pubs/wp118.pdf (application/pdf)
Our link check indicates that this URL is bad, the error code is: 404 Not Found (http://www.levyinstitute.org/pubs/wp118.pdf [301 Moved Permanently]--> https://levyweb.bard.edu/pubs/wp118.pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:lev:wrkpap:wp_118

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Economics Working Paper Archive from Levy Economics Institute
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Elizabeth Dunn ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).