Re: the superiority of economics ...

[James Devine <jdevine@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

wojtek sokolowski writes: Based on single exchange with an economists on
what consitutes an 'explanation' in social science, I came to a conclusion
that at least some American economists differ from sociologists quite
significantly on that issue. For most sociologists, explanation is an
empirical inquiry into causation (identifying ideally sufficient and
neccessary conditions producing an outcome under investigation) -- but for
my economist colleague that was a sheer waste of time. His understandig: to
explain was to make things happen which, upond further inquiry, meant
social engineering: making people follow the laid from above rules of
efficient behavior. <

This sounds like a Chicago schoolian. They follow Milton Friedman's
"positive economics" and don't really care about the validity of their
assumptions of how things work (i.e., causality). All these types care
about is whether or not the "model" predicts. They also assume that people
follow rules of efficient behavior (if I understand what you mean here) and
abhor "social engineering." (The only kind of social engineering they like
is when the World Bank/IMF imposes the Friedmaniac Free Market Eden on
people, with an assist from the Pinochets of the world, which allegedly
allows people to follow the "rules of efficient behavior" more efficiently.)

Instead of the railway analogy, the analogy that the "Chicagoans" use is
that it doesn't matter whether a weight falls to the earth because it is in
love with the earth or because of the force of gravity. All that matters is
the prediction.

Many economists are better than the Chicago school. We're fooling ourselves
if we assume that they aren't.

>... My colleague considered that mode of "explanation" far superior to not
only that used in other social sciences, but to the methods of historical
economics (popular in Germany and other European countries) as well. His
proof: no economist of influence does this kind of stuff (i.e. historical
economics) anymore.<

This, unfortunately, is very very common. Most economists are trained to
read nothing more than five years old and most do not transcend their
training. Further, there is what Paul Krugman calls a "pecking order" in
economics, with the Big Names (those who publish in the Top Ten Journals)
at the Big Name Schools dominating. The BNs at the BNSs set the fashion and
the vast majority of economists -- especially those just out of grad school
who haven't gotten tenure yet -- follow the fashion. In economics, the
fashion is mostly mathematical, often applying the "newest and best"
techniques to the fashionable questions of the hour, adding minor bells and
whistles to the models of the BNs of the BNSs. Not only does this produce a
style of research that is reminiscent of the mad dash to grab "Tickle Me
Elmo" dolls last Xmas, but it often means the redigging of old holes, the
repetition of economic theories that were developed years previous.

If Barkley Rosser were around pen-l these days, he'd tell you about how
Paul Krugman's "path-breaking" models in economic geography simply repeated
a literature that already existed.

In many cases, mathematics serves the same purpose for economics that legal
jargon does for law, shielding the content of the theory from prying eyes.
(I'm not against math, by the way. However, the benefit of its use doesn't
always exceed its cost.)

in pen-l solidarity,

Jim Devine  jdevine@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx &
http://clawww.lmu.edu/1997F/ECON/jdevine.html
"Dear, you increase the dopamine in my accumbens." -- words of love for the
1990s.