Economics : mathematical politics or science of diminishing returns?
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Bibliographic Information
Economics : mathematical politics or science of diminishing returns?
（Science and its conceptual foundations）
University of Chicago Press, 1992
- : cloth
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Note
Includes bibliographical references (p. 255-259) and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
Economics today cannot predict the likely outcome of specific events any better than it could in the time of Adam Smith. This is Alexander Rosenberg's controversial challenge to the scientific status of economics. Rosenberg explains that the defining characteristic of any science is predictive improvability--the capacity to create more precise forecasts by evaluating the success of earlier predictions--and he forcefully argues that because economics has not been able to increase its predictive power for over two centuries, it is not a science.
Table of Contents
Preface Ch. 1: What Does the Philosophy of Science Have to Do with Economics? The real relation between philosophy and science The mutual constraints of goals, theories, and rules The proximate goals of economics Ch. 2: Two Dead Ends in the Philosophy of Economics Does philosophy constrain economics? Economics without epistemology The role of prediction in biology, physics, and economics Ch. 3: Is Economic Theory Predictively Successful? Friedman on the predictive weakness of economic theory Leontief on the same subject Are generic predictions enough? Generic predictions in Keynesian macroeconomics and rational expectations theory Gibbard and Varian on economic models as caricatures Ch. 4: Neoclassical Economics as a Research Program The methodology of scientific research programs Lakatosian consolations for economists Research programs and the demarcation problem Down the slippery slope to McCloskey Ch. 5: Economics and Intentional Psychology Expectations and preferences, beliefs and desires The problem of improvability Economics and linguistics: Nelson's gambit Are there expectations and preferences? Conclusion Ch. 6: Could Economics Be a Biological Science? The problem of exogenous tastes Becker's new theory of consumer choice Stable preferences as human needs Can we "naturalize" information? Generic predictions and the temptation of biology Darwin, Friedman, and Alchain Equilibrium and information in evolution and economics Conclusion Ch. 7: Why General Equilibrium Theory? "Economics just is general equilibrium analysis" Can we have partial equilibrium without general equilibrium? What needs explanation? Can general equilibrium theory explain it? General equilibrium and the social contract Are generic predictions enough after all? Ch. 8: Is Economic Theory Mathematics? Extremal theories and intentionality Economics as applied mathematics Microeconomics and Euclidean geometry But is it science? Bibliography Index
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