It's a field which is mostly interested in models and anyone can agree that a model is consistant and implies surprising things even if they think the hypotheses it makes don't faithfully represent reality.
It's endlessly fascinating to me how some people will happily disparage economics while having very little idea of what it's actually about.
How is making a factual assertion (there is no conseusus in the discipline of economics) somehow "disparaging economics"???? There is no consensus, unlike harder sciences such as physics or biology, and like social sciences such as sociology or anthropology. Because economics is the latter and not the former.
And please do me the favour of not assuming I "have very little idea of what it's actually about". It's contrary to the site guidelines (and it's very annoying).
Modelling isn't the higher intellectual pursuit it's made out to be. Imo designing theoretical models post-hoc to "support" a desired conclusion is not unheard of in econ/finance.
It doesn't really change anything to their inherent value that you build them from the hypotheses up or from the conclusions down. It holds the same that this set of interactions lead to this behaviour.
Sometimes going down can be equally interesting: "What would a system where tariff improves the overall well being of a country inhabitants look like?". Contrast the model requirements with empirical data and you have an interesting paper.
The 2019 economics prize went to empirical research.
The non-mainstrean economists (aka heterodox, aka cranks) are usually more obviously pursuing an agenda, but they definitely usually don't have better empirical evidence.
Of course, there is consensus in economics.
It's a field which is mostly interested in models and anyone can agree that a model is consistant and implies surprising things even if they think the hypotheses it makes don't faithfully represent reality.
It's endlessly fascinating to me how some people will happily disparage economics while having very little idea of what it's actually about.
How is making a factual assertion (there is no conseusus in the discipline of economics) somehow "disparaging economics"???? There is no consensus, unlike harder sciences such as physics or biology, and like social sciences such as sociology or anthropology. Because economics is the latter and not the former.
And please do me the favour of not assuming I "have very little idea of what it's actually about". It's contrary to the site guidelines (and it's very annoying).
Modelling isn't the higher intellectual pursuit it's made out to be. Imo designing theoretical models post-hoc to "support" a desired conclusion is not unheard of in econ/finance.
It's tautological but models are models.
It doesn't really change anything to their inherent value that you build them from the hypotheses up or from the conclusions down. It holds the same that this set of interactions lead to this behaviour.
Sometimes going down can be equally interesting: "What would a system where tariff improves the overall well being of a country inhabitants look like?". Contrast the model requirements with empirical data and you have an interesting paper.
The 2019 economics prize went to empirical research.
The non-mainstrean economists (aka heterodox, aka cranks) are usually more obviously pursuing an agenda, but they definitely usually don't have better empirical evidence.
2 replies →
Precisely. To quote the famous economic dictum: it works in practice, but does it work in theory?
That's nonsensical. There is overwhelming consensus over many things, e.g. tariffs.