From Equilibrium to Contingency: Rethinking Economic Modeling
Leonardo Ivarola (),
Alfredo Garcia and
Martín Szybisz
Additional contact information
Leonardo Ivarola: CONICET - Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas [Buenos Aires], University of Buenos Aires, Argentina
Alfredo Garcia: University of Buenos Aires, Argentina
Martín Szybisz: University of Buenos Aires, Argentina
Working Papers from HAL
Abstract:
This paper presents a critique of the concept of order and equilibrium in economics. Based on the philosophical notion of contingency (Meillassoux, 2008; Hui, 2019), it is shown that economic approaches grounded in equilibrium as the cornerstone of their theoretical framework suffer from three conceptual problems. First, there is an ontological problem in which things could always be otherwise. Accepting this means that economic systems should not be conceived in mechanistic terms, but rather as metastable processes open to transformation. Second, there is an epistemic problem, since there is no guarantee that what holds today will remain valid in the future. Third, there is a pragmatic problem, related to people's actions in an ever-changing environment. It is proposed that these three problems are articulated in a triad that, once open to contingency, evolves recursively. In particular, it is argued that traditional economic models, which focus on deductive rigor, face serious limitations in both external validity and their ability to learn. In contrast, simulation models are proposed as a key instrument for examining economic scenarios open to contingency.
Keywords: Contingency Recursive learning Equilibrium Adaptive processes Economic modeling Simulation models; Contingency; Recursive learning; Equilibrium; Adaptive processes; Economic modeling; Simulation models (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025-09-12
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-05240376v1
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:
Downloads: (external link)
https://hal.science/hal-05240376v1/document (application/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:hal:wpaper:hal-05240376
Access Statistics for this paper
More papers in Working Papers from HAL
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CCSD ().