There is much more in your Ptolemy analogy above than you might even realize.

My take is that orthodox economics is currently pre-Copernican; Ptolemaic in fact. But recall, that even though Ptolemaic astronomy was incredibly complicated mathematically – few today can read it with ease – advances in astronomy required revolutions in mathematics as well, not a refocus to more discursive methods.

I predict modern economics will take a similar path of Ptolemy to Copernicus to Kepler to Galileo to Newton…….

There is no such thing as “Islamic Science”.

I gotta say, lunging for the “neoliberalism done it” defence is beneath you.

I’m wrong, you’re ideological, they’re nuts.

I got this link from Brad DeLong’s blog.

How very well you express your points. Rarely does one see such an example of hitting the nail absolutely on the head.

Larry Elliott has for years been displaying his lack of knowledge of economics written since 1975, and on policy he is just a disaster: for example, we all know that he’s against the Euro but only because sometimes because it’s too strong and sometimes because it’s too weak: what next?

Two points for readers of Larry to consider:

1. his attempt at a “first eleven” in economics that fails in effect to mention a Nobel prize winner or a John Bates Clark medal winner (wonks will understand or can Google or Wikipedia), is just risible: read the lists and disagree, I challenge readers. You and others are far better suited to argue this with Larry Elliott in detail,.

2. I know of no serious economist who argues that the answer to “How Much Maths” is not “As Much As You Can Manage” as a student, and “As Much As You Need” as a researcher or teacher. Very few economists can achieve work of value without much maths, Paul Krugman or Thomas Schelling perhaps, but even their work inspires mathematical extensions of great value. And this has been true since 1945 or earlier.

Regards,

Barry

I don’t have one. I think ideologies cause people to get emotional (and of course many other things cause people to get emotional as well). Even before you started this line of argument I was entirely convinced that ideology is part of what causes economic debates to get heated. I am not going to say it’s all, because I’ve seen debates get heated in engineering circles where political ideology doesn’t come into it, but I think the ideological motivation explains a lot of the emotion, though I can’t give you a percentage.

Enemies are a good thing, when they are attacking on disciplinary grounds, but not when they’re attacking you for “abandoning the cause of economics.” That’s not ferreting out errors or probing the weaknesses of arguments – it’s a political assault, because they didn’t like the empirical results of Card’s work. You haven’t really addressed this point.

I agree that attacks should be focused on the quality of the work, not on political grounds like “abandoning the cause of economics”. But that sort of attack doesn’t convince me that economics is not a science. It’s just a science done by humans, who do get emotionally involved and do launch attacks based on extraneous factors and do not like results. Consider for example the heated debates about research into the benefits or costs of childcare, or abortion, or the inheritability of IQ.

As I said earlier, “Science in reality is not pure and disinterested. It’s human and messy.” I don’t know how I can address your point any more than I already have.

Since the 1980s, I would argue that neoliberal influences have gotten stronger, not weaker, and that to me is a sign of ideological politics at work – your examples are good on this.

But your original argument was, to quote:

So sure, people do empirical economics all the time, but the basic theoretical fraemworks – the ones that are used to structure public policy – don’t change.

How can you combine this argument here with your statement just above that neoliberal influences have gotten stronger? Things can’t both not change and also get stronger. Getting stronger is a change.

Central bank independence is not non-ideological; there’s a strong element of the argument that suggests that economists need to resist popular pressures for looser monetary policy, because inflation is worse than unemployment.

You’re stuck on the Philips curve hypothesis that there is a stable trade-off between inflation and unemployment. In fact, the theory behind central bank independence is that the more you make the trade-off towards unemployment the less-effective the trade-off gets, as market participants start to expect inflation and adjust their plans accordingly, so you eventually wind up with the stagflation of the 1970s, high inflation and rising unemployment. So, if people have low inflationary expectations you can use unexpected inflation to boost employment at low cost, but it’s a once in a generation trick (or however long you think market participants remember). The more you use it, the less effective it gets.

So a stronger argument for central bank independence is to resist the short-termism of politicians, particularly shortly before elections.

Likewise, inflation targeting suggests that economic stability is a higher-order value than economic growth.

Perhaps it suggests that to you. The stronger argument for inflation targeting I know of is that “we can’t get richer by just printing more money, we get richer by producing more goods and services.” I don’t know of any particular work on the possible trade-off between economic stability and economic growth, this of course could well be a reflection of my ignorance, not of the absence of such work.

These arguments may be wrong, of course, but they are less ideological than the arguments you stated.

This is flat-out disingenuous; in the very next sentence,

Actually yeah, on thinking about it, you’re right. I withdraw my accusation of just making stuff up. My apologies. I still however remain unconvinced that the work of the institutionalists and historists is more empirical than the articles I quoted. (I’m not arguing that it isn’t more empirical, I’m saying that we don’t know.)

As for the value of the institutionalist and historicist work, Ronald Coase, Douglass North and Robert Fogel won Nobel Prizes in economics, which is pretty high on the totem pole.

There’s probably some interesting sociology research on why various hypothesis get tested and firmly debated in science and others don’t, but beyond my knowledge of the interests of politicians in economics, and the cognitive attractions of theories that seek to explain a variety of empirical results I don’t know much about it.

Again, what’s your rationale for claiming that political disputes are actually emotional disputes?

Firstly, I will say that I think that while political disputes are emotional, they are not merely emotional, there are often topics of substances discussed. I am not claiming that all political disputes can be explained merely in emotional terms.
Secondly, as to why I think that political disputes are also (though often not merely) emotional disputes, I’ve engaged in political disputes and I’ve felt my emotions running pretty high. I’ve also seen signs of emotions in other people, eg raised voices, changes in complexion, tense body postures, insults being hurled. I suppose I could be completely wrong about this, I would be interested in an alternate hypothesis explaining these observations.

As for Krugman/DeLong, I agree with you that ideology probably drives a lot of the conflict. I think this is good. Perhaps DeLong and Krugman are so self-driven internally that they would just as excellent work even if not exposed to ideologically-motivated attacks, but neither of us can see inside their minds. (If I’m wrong about this, I’d be fascinated to know.) But if their work survives the attacks of their opponents who hate their guts for ideological reasons, we can have some more confidence in Krugman and DeLong’s results even without being able to see into their minds. Of course it would be better to be able to test their theories in a lab, but we can’t build macroeconomies in labs and test them that way. Perhaps Vulcans could do that testing in a pure and disinterested way, but as Star Trek makes clear, humans aren’t Vulcans.

I take your point about democracy and economic theory. One excellent compromise would be a resurgence of the teaching of economic history, which basically died over the past twenty years, replaced – most unsatisfactoryly from a political perspective – by all that poststrcuturalist tedium in undergrad history and social sciences generally (except economics itself of course)

Ok, I feel we’re talking around in circles here. I am disputing that what you call emotion is actually ideology; what’s your argument to the contrary?

Enemies are a good thing, when they are attacking on disciplinary grounds, but not when they’re attacking you for “abandoning the cause of economics.” That’s not ferreting out errors or probing the weaknesses of arguments – it’s a political assault, because they didn’t like the empirical results of Card’s work. You haven’t really addressed this point.

Since the 1980s, I would argue that neoliberal influences have gotten stronger, not weaker, and that to me is a sign of ideological politics at work – your examples are good on this. Central bank independence is not non-ideological; there’s a strong element of the argument that suggests that economists need to resist popular pressures for looser monetary policy, because inflation is worse than unemployment. Likewise, inflation targeting suggests that economic stability is a higher-order value than economic growth.

“you just made up your assertion that “historical and institutional economists” are the most empirically-minded schools.” This is flat-out disingenuous; in the very next sentence, I say that I’ve read a lot of the history of economists, and I know that the debate was pitched directly at the issue of whether abstract modeling or empirical observation was better – read Yunal Yuvay’s Struggle for the Soul of Economics if you don’t believe me.

Regarding your 3 points, I think I over-stated my argument; institutionalists/historicists didn’t disavow theory or models per se, but thought that it should flow inductively after observation. As for public policy, well I think Gardiner Means was pretty damn influential during the New Deal, and he was a straight-up institutionalist.

“Have you ever met any human beings in real life?” This is non-responsive. I was taking issue with your statement:

Or take the response to the Great Depression. The conventional macroeconomics that couldn’t explain the prolonged slump was dumped and Keynesianism took over, then Friedman came up with monetarism as an alternative theory, and the neo-classicists started proposing alternative theories, then Keynesian economics as then understood collapsed because of stagflation, so that was abandoned and people started working on neo-Keynesian theories.
How do you explain these sorts of events?

Again, what’s your rationale for claiming that political disputes are actually emotional disputes? If that’s the case, why are economists talking about the “cause of economics”?

Re: Krugman/DeLong, this isn’t just a question of emotions. Krugman and DeLong are both self-identifying progressives, who are reacting to what they see as disciplinary backsliding – the revival of the Treasury view – that lacks a good disciplinary rationale. I don’t propose that there aren’t emotional subtexts here, but I think the primary conflict is political.

And of course it happens in other sciences. See for example the reactions to the continental drift theory. http://www.scientus.org/Wegener-Continental-Drift.html

Science in reality is not pure and disinterested. It’s human and messy. But it’s the best we can do. And I will add in a defence of emotion in science. To be really tested a theory not merely needs to be thoroughly attacked, and enemies are the best at this:

One way of dealing with errors is to have friends who are willing to spend the time necessary to carry out a critical examination of the experimental design behorehand and the results after the experiments have been completed. An even better way is to have an enemy. An enemy is willing to to devote a vast amount of time and brain power to ferreting out errors
both large and small, and this without any compensation. The trouble is that really capable enemies are scarce; most of them are only ordinary. Another trouble with enemies is that they sometimes develop into friends and lose a great deal of their zeal. It was in this way the writer lost his three best enemies. Everyone, not just scientists, needs a good few enemies. – Georg von Békésy ( physicist and psychologist)

If a physicist and a psychologist can think that enemies are useful, this strikes me as an argument for them in economics as well.

So sure, people do empirical economics all the time, but the basic theoretical fraemworks – the ones that are used to structure public policy – don’t change.

So you think that there has been no change over recent decades in the influence of neoliberal thought on policy-making? How do you explain the introduction of inflation-targeting and central bank independence in the 1980s then?

Here, I admit, I’m more out on a limb here, because I don’t do economics,

In other words, you just made up your assertion that “historical and institutional economists” are the most empirically-minded schools.

Institutionalists and historicists explicitly disavow modeling and abstract theorizing and believe that only empirical observation of institutional or historical development of economic activity should be done.

There are three problems with this sort of approach:
1. How do you decide what economic activity should be empirically observed without any abstract theorising? How do you even know what economic activity is without abstract theorising?
2. If you don’t do any abstract theorising or modelling, you can’t offer anything useful to policy-makers.
3. You’ve committed your science to lacking a certain sort of wonder. You’ve ruled out ever discovering the economic equivalent of the law of evolution, or Newton’s three laws of motion, or the periodic table, or recessive genes, or the subconscious.

I think this explains your question why historical and institutional economics is low, low on the totem pole. They’ve adopted a philosophy that is unlikely to attract funding because it can’t offer either useful practical advice, or a feeling of wonder and awe. Of course if they want to do that, that’s their choice, I believe in freedom, but I also think that people have the freedom to ignore their research.

Of course, I am relying on your statement that institutionalists and historicists explicitly disavow modelling and abstract theorising. Since you just made up your earlier statement that these were the most empirically-minded schools, it strikes me as entirely possible that you just made this statement about their beliefs up too.

If it’s simply the case that economists are constantly revising and re-evaluating core truths,

Why do you think it’s simply the case? I asked you before about this when you seemed surprised that economists might react emotionally to the minimum wage theory. I still don’t get why you expect economics to be all non-emotional. Have you ever met any human beings in real life?

why is that we saw a re-emergence in economic doctrines like the ones that John Quiggan has been writing about in his “Refuted Economic Doctrine” series?

John Quiggins doesn’t get to define what is true and what is refuted. He can put forward his arguments, but he’s only one.

Why have Brad DeLong and Paul Krugman been talking about a “Dark Ages” in economics, where ideas like the Treasury view are being espoused by major economists?

Brad DeLong and Paul Krugman are human beings, as well as economists, and thus respond emotionally, like other economists.

Again and again, you seem to have this view that real sciences operate all dispassionately and economics is somehow inferior becuase it doesn’t. Am I right? Why do you believe that real sciences operate dispassionately?

Ummm, because it was surprising and didn’t fit in with the theory? What did you expect? Economists to be emotionless about their subject? You are aware that economists are human beings, aren’t you?
Anyway, this statement appears to conflict your original thesis. If your thesis is that modern economics didn’t care about empiricism, then surely there wouldn’t have been an uproar, the data would just have been ignored.

Second, my argument wasn’t that it doesn’t care – it’s that it doesn’t re-evaluate its premises based on empirical data. So sure, people do empirical economics all the time, but the basic theoretical fraemworks – the ones that are used to structure public policy – don’t change.

You mean Alan Blinder, the bloke who is a Professor of Economics at Princeton University? If that’s being ripped, I think most economists would adore that sort of suffering. And why are you worried about economic theories being attacked? Isn’t that what we want to happen? The process may get emotional, but that’s the problem with any science that has to be done by human beings.

This isn’t just emotion. These are people who believe that economics = minimum wage is evil, and anyone who says different is a traitor to a CAUSE.
And that cause is political – the idea that raising the minimum wage decreases employment comes straight out of marginalism and it’s always used in public discourse on the minimum wage in a debate where economists are the heavy siege weapons of political warfare.

Why are historical and institutional economists – the most empirically-minded schools – not the dominant force within the discipline?

Why do you say that they are more empirically-minded than the data-mining papers like the ones that I listed? In other words, what metric are you using?

Here, I admit, I’m more out on a limb here, because I don’t do economics, although I’ve read a lot about the history of economics. Institutionalists and historicists explicitly disavow modeling and abstract theorizing and believe that only empirical observation of institutional or historical development of economic activity should be done. From a methodological standpoint, that has to be more empirically-focused than an approach that starts with assumptions about human and economic behavior, then constructs theoretical models, then goes out and does research based on those models.

And why would you expect economics to have one dominant force within the discipline?

The variety of issues makes it seem unlikely to me that there would be one dominant force. Why do you think there would be one?

Even if there’s not one dominant force, it’s fair to say that historical and institutional economics is low, low on the totempole. Look what happened to Notre Dame’s economics department as an example of how the orthodoxy is maintained.

but that there isn’t step 4. “Holy shit, the basic model doesn’t work – abandon [Major Premise of Necoclassical Economics].”

Hold on. In my microeconomics 401 class, the lecturer started off with the expectations theory of decision-making under uncertainty, showed us that it didn’t work, using us as proof, and then went on to some other theories proposed to explain actual human-decision-making. I was quite impressed, mostly my engineering lecturers left the proof of their assertions until the lab, they didn’t do them within the lecture. So in this case the step did happen.

If it’s simply the case that economists are constantly revising and re-evaluating core truths, why is that we saw a re-emergence in economic doctrines like the ones that John Quiggan has been writing about in his “Refuted Economic Doctrine” series? Why have Brad DeLong and Paul Krugman been talking about a “Dark Ages” in economics, where ideas like the Treasury view are being espoused by major economists?

The guy who roundly disagreed with President Bush about the effect of Bush’s tax cuts on economic growth? See Mankiw vs Bush. If this is brought and sold then Republic presidents really suck at shopping.

Then go to everybody who supports the ‘Treasury view’. And everybody who kissed Greenspan’s *ass.

Names please of those people who supported the “Treasury view” and who you also believe are available to be bought and sold by Republican presidents.

I also note how your claim has morphed from the leading lights of the economics profession at Chicago and Harvard to one named person (who you are wrong about) and a set of unnamed persons at unnamed universities who support an undefined view and also engage in what I presume you mean to be the metaphorical act of kissing Greenspan’s ass. You are moving into less and less falsifiable claims, rather than trying to defend your original claim, which in my experience is a good sign that you just made stuff up in the first place.