 Successes and failures in the transformation of economicsRichard Lipsey (rlipsey@sfu.ca) Journal of Economic Methodology, 2001, vol. 8, issue 2, 169-201 Abstract: While acknowledging the successes of modern economics, this paper concentrates on some shortcomings. Many are traced to a single source: the great insights of economics are all qualitative. Economics does not have a theoretical structure that is tightly related to a rich body of data and those seeking to contribute to its ideas operate on widely divergent levels of theoretical and empirical sophistication with little communication between those who operate at different levels. One consequence is that anomalies are tolerated on a scale that would be scandalous in any natural science. Another is that theories tend to be developed in unconstrained ways that are empirically relevant only by accident. Elegant error is often preferred to messy truth. Theoretical tractability is often preferred to empirical relevance. Economists often prefer theories that produce unambiguous policy results over theories that do not, irrespective of their relative evidential bases. Keywords: Methodology; Abstraction; Formalism; Empirical Relevance; Second Best; Industrial Policy; Optimality; Qualitative Insights (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:jecmet:v:8:y:2001:i:2:p:169-201 Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from DOI: 10.1080/13501780110047273 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 |
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