Post written by By Jesper Jespersen, dr. scient. adm. – Roskilde University, Denmark
A Tribute to the late Victoria Chick (1936-2023) and her insistence on the relevance of Macroeconomic Methodology.
Professor(em) Victoria Chick (VC), UCL died in January this year. Although she only published two books rather early in her academic career, she has made a lasting imprint into the field of Macroeconomic Methodology.
All the way back in 1983 VC published her pathbreaking book ‘Macroeconomics after Keynes’. At that time conventional Keynes-scholars were still teaching Keynes’s macroeconomics by referring to John Hicks’ forty years old paper on the difference between ‘Keynes and the Classics’ by using the IS-LM diagram. In her book she argued convincingly that this interpretation of Keynes’s General Theory used the neoclassical method of a closed-system analysis.
At that time very few Keynes scholars had understood that the real break between ‘Keynes and the (neo)classics’, according to her reading of The General Theory, was not whether the IS- or LM-curves were vertical or horizontal in the short or longer run; but the very notion of general equilibrium.
To VC the divide between ‘Keynes and the Classics’ was about the relevant method of doing (macro)economics. She often said, you have to stick deeper in your understanding of macroeconomic analysis than just to use a conventional mathematical or econometric macro-model. Keynes’s debate with Jan Tinbergen on macroeconomic modelling (Keynes, 1939) was one of her frequent points of reference. Although she became more and more respected academically and promoted to full professor at UCL, it took more than 20 years even within the Post-Keynesian society to get her insistence on the importance of macro methodology fully acknowledged.
Fortunately the ignorance did not last. In 2013 Routledge asked, if she (and I) would design and edit a Handbook of Macroeconomic Methodology. At that time there were only a couple of handbooks of economics, but none devoted solely to macroeconomics. A handbook is a demanding publication, because it has – like an encyclopedia – to cover all relevant perspectives. Although Keynes is the originator of macroeconomics this specific analytical perspective on economics has been adopted by other schools. Therefore, to avoid loop-sidedness we expanded the editorial board with Bert Tieben, Ph.D. an eminent neoclassical scholar.
The Handbook of Macroeconomic Methodology (Routledge, 2023) intended to make a contribution to the foundation of ‘how macroeconomists work’. Macroeconomists use different methods. They are not ‘just doing economics’; but they are not always explicit in their use of the method (theory and practice) they practice. It is the pivot argument of the Handbook that one method does not fit unequivocally to all macroeconomic problems. By method we meant the systemic combination of theory, empirical tests and communication (i.e. how research is presented in journals, in teaching and to the public).
However, the editors were taken by surprise to realize how difficult it turned out to be to establish a wide ranging group of serious macroeconomists writing a paper for the Handbook focusing on methodology. Of course, we were prepared to get refusals from New Classicals and Austrians scholars, who deny that there should be any specific macro-approach in economics. But even among devoted macroeconomists we got quite often the response to our invitation: Why methodology? I am doing (macro)economics!
Fortunately, we managed in the end to get 29 scholarly papers divided into five categories:
- Macroeconomic Methodology: Philosophy of Science perspectives
- Macroeconomic Methodology: Concepts
- Macroeconomic Methodology: Schools of Thought
- Macroeconomic Methodology: Relationship between theory, method, modelling and ‘the real world’
- Macroeconomic Methodology: Perspectives related to Teaching and Communication
The editors had to work nearly 10 years on this Handbook to get it finalized! Trust me, VC had strong requirements to all the papers with regard to the academic standard. They all had to pass, what I came to call the “Vicky-test” of solid content and clarity. On top of this editorial work, she contributed to the handbook with three papers.
I do not think that it is an exaggeration to consider this Handbook of Macroeconomic Methodology as an epitaph for the long lasting contributions by Victoria Chick to Macroeconomics.
Here you can find the Table of contents
Introduction: The scope of the Handbook (editors’ introduction)
I. Philosophy of Science Perspectives
I.1. Methodological Individualism and macroeconomics Andy Denis.
I.2. Deduction, Induction and Abduction Lars Syll
I.3. Instrumentalism J. Daniel Hammond
I.4. From positivism to naturalism in macroeconomics John Hart
I.5. Holism & Fallacy of Composition in macroeconomics Victoria Chick & Jesper Jespersen
I.6. Macroeconomics and Ethics Finn Olesen
II. Concepts
II.1 Time in Macroeconomics Mogens Ove Madsen
II.2 Uncertainty and Macroeconomic Methodology Sheila Dow
II.3 Path dependency Mark Setterfield
II.4 Equilibrium Bert Tieben
II.5 Causality Alessandro Vercelli
II.6 Microeconomic foundation of macroeconomics Nuno Ornelas Martins
II.7 Open/closed systems Victoria Chick
II.8. Money and Macroeconomic Methodology Claude Gnos
III. Schools of Thought
III.1. Classical Political Economy Nuno Ornelas Martins
III.2. Neoclassical Macroeconomics Bert Tieben
III.3. Keynes’s Methodology Victoria Chick & Jesper Jespersen
III.4. Post-Keynesian Methodology John E. King
III.5. Austrian Economics Scott Scheall
III.6. What was Marx’s Method, actually? Alan Freeman
III.7. Methodological Pluralism in Macroeconomics Ioana Negru & Alessandro Vercelli
IV. Models, Econometrics and Measurement
IV.1. Use of Mathematics and Modelling Lars Josephsen
IV.2. Explanation and Forecasting Marcel Boumans
IV.3. Using macroeconomic models in policy practice Frank den Butter
IV.4. Traditional Methods of Macroeconometrics Henning Bunzel
IV.5. Macroeconometrics: Cointegrated VAR Methodology Katarina Juselius
IV.6. National Accounts and Macroeconomic Methodology Geoff Tily
V. Communicating Macroeconomics
V.1. Macroeconomics is good for making sense of the economy Arjo Klamer
V.2. Teaching Macroeconomic Methodology Jan Holm Ingemann
References
Chick, V., 1983, Macroeconomics after Keynes: A reconsideration of The General Theory, Oxford: Philip Allan.
Jespersen, J. 2009, Macroeconomic Methodology: a Post-Keynesian Perspective, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
Jespersen, J., V. Chick & B. Tieben, 2023, Handbook of Macroeconomic Methodology, London: Routledge.
Keynes, J. M., 1939, Professor Tinbergen’s method, The Economic Journal, Vol. 49, No. 195. (Sept.), pp. 558-577.
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