Reflections on Soros: Mach, Quine, Arthur and far-from-equilibrium dynamics
Rod Cross,
Harold Hutchinson,
Harbir Lamba and
Doug Strachan
Journal of Economic Methodology, 2013, vol. 20, issue 4, 357-367
Abstract:
We argue that the Soros account of reflexivity does not provide a clear-cut distinction between a social science such as economics and the physical sciences. It is pointed out that the participants who attempt to learn from refutations of conjectures in the Soros world are likely to be haunted by the Duhem--Quine problem of conjointness of hypotheses and unfocused refutation. On a more constructive note, we argue that models of inductive learning, in which participants form conjectures on the basis of strictly limited information sets, can capture the basic thrust of the Soros position. The conjectures are in motion, as the participants attempt to avoid those that are systematically wrong, and there is something vague and uncertain about what can be learned from experience and refutations. The only notion of market efficiency in this world is one contingent on the strictly limited and varied information sets in play. Finally we present a mathematical model and numerical simulations that help justify the causal relationship between reflexivity and far-from-equilibrium dynamics postulated by Soros.
Date: 2013
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)
Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/1350178X.2013.859406 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
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:taf:jecmet:v:20:y:2013:i:4:p:357-367
Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/RJEC20
DOI: 10.1080/1350178X.2013.859406
Access Statistics for this article
Journal of Economic Methodology is currently edited by John Davis and D Wade Hands
More articles in Journal of Economic Methodology from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().