What characterizes the object that Economics studies?

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Chapter 2 in Theories and Models in Economics, 2024, pp 7-23 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: In order to understand what economists do, it is important to know the characteristics of the object that Economics studies. Initially, I formulate the hypothesis that Economics studies a chaos-theoretic object: The economy is a complex system with many interacting parts, where small differences in characteristics can affect how the system will react to various changes. The economy also changes over time. If this hypothesis is true, we should expect specific differences between what Nobel Prize winners in Economics have done in the subject compared with winners in Physics. The data support these implications, for example that theories in Economics were more often described as frameworks and that no Nobel Prize winner in Economics received the prize for finding a stable empirical regularity. Mathematics can be used in Physics to formulate empirical laws, but in economics mathematics is used create model economies and the idea is that studying these models will help us understand how the world works.

Keywords: Economics and Finance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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