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PART III - EVALUATION

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 June 2012

Roger E. Backhouse
Affiliation:
University of Birmingham
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Summary

Running through all the four chapters in Part II are questions of methodology. What does it mean to be scientific in economics or, to put the question differently, how can economic inquiry best be carried out? The abstract theories and elaborate statistical methods that have been the butt of so much criticism were the result of economists' having attempted to construct a rigorous scientific economics. Given the mixed record of success and failure revealed in Part I, what lessons can be drawn? Rather than answer this question by proposing a new methodology that will solve these problems, Chapter 10 suggests that the value of formal theory may not lie in presenting a view of how the world must work but in continually questioning our presuppositions about how the economic world operates. This offers a path between complete scepticism about economic theory and formal econometric methods and uncritical acceptance of the reigning orthodoxies. To support this case, the chapter starts with an exploration of the different ways in which economic knowledge can be created.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Puzzle of Modern Economics
Science or Ideology?
, pp. 165 - 166
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2010

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  • EVALUATION
  • Roger E. Backhouse, University of Birmingham
  • Book: The Puzzle of Modern Economics
  • Online publication: 05 June 2012
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511780196.012
Available formats
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  • EVALUATION
  • Roger E. Backhouse, University of Birmingham
  • Book: The Puzzle of Modern Economics
  • Online publication: 05 June 2012
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511780196.012
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • EVALUATION
  • Roger E. Backhouse, University of Birmingham
  • Book: The Puzzle of Modern Economics
  • Online publication: 05 June 2012
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511780196.012
Available formats
×