Rights and wrongs of economic modelling: refining Rodrik

Uskali Mäki

Journal of Economic Methodology, 2018, vol. 25, issue 3, 218-236

Abstract: This is a critical discussion and proposed refinement of the inspiring account of the successes and failures of economic modelling sketched in Dani Rodrik’s Economics Rules. The refinements make use of a systematic framework of the structure of scientific modelling. The issues include distinguishing the discipline of economics from the behaviour and attitudes of economists as targets of normative assessment; nature and sources of success and failure in modelling; the key role of model commentary; model transparency; purposes and audiences of modelling; the nature of critical assumptions; negligibility, applicability, and tractability in modelling; the possibility of generally applicable models; and economics fundamentalism. The proposed refinements submit sharper formulations for some of Rodrik’s ideas and supplement others, but they also reveal tensions and relieve some – not yet all – of these.

Date: 2018
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DOI: 10.1080/1350178X.2018.1488475

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