{bit.ly/weara2e} The talk linked below explains why the positivist/nominalist methodology used in Econometrics leads to mostly nonesense regressions. It also explains how a realist alternative can be developed. “The Philosophy and Techniques for Quantitative Research” – Keynote Address by Dr. Asad Zaman, VC PIDE at Workshop on 19-20 April, 2018 Dept of Economics, Fatima Jinnah Women’s University, Rawalpindi,… Read More A Realist Approach to Econometrics
[[bit.do/weafm]] In “The Trouble with Macro”, Romer writes that macro-economists casually dismiss facts, and the profession as a whole has gone backwards over the past few decades, losing precious and hard-won knowledge. He does not consider WHY this happened. What are the methodological flaws that create the possibility of moving backwards, losing knowledge, affirming theories… Read More Friedman’s Methodology: A Stake through the Heart of Reason
That economics is a value-laden science is not a new idea. Most of the prominent economic thinkers were also philosophers, wary of moral and philosophical content of scientific assumptions, models, and theories. That economics needs philosophy, and the separation between these two cannot be maintained any longer, is gaining recognition, and has become a subject… Read More Scientist qua scientist, scientist qua citizen: Part I
{bit.ly/WEAgd29} Preliminary Remarks: “The trouble is not so much that macroeconomists say things that are inconsistent with the facts. The real trouble is that other economists do not care that the macroeconomists do not care about the facts. An indifferent tolerance of obvious error is even more corrosive to science than committed advocacy of error.”… Read More Understanding Macro: The Great Depression (1/3)
[bit.ly/wp0hg] As a preliminary demonstration, and an explanation of the “Three Methodologies“, we assess how they work in primitive hunter-gatherer societies. A hunter-gatherer is a human living in a society in which most or all food is obtained by foraging (collecting wild plants and pursuing wild animals), in contrast to agricultural societies, which rely mainly… Read More Hunter-Gatherer Societies
This is a summary of the introduction/motivation part of href=”https://sites.google.com/site/az4math/ll15europe19th”>Lecture 15 on Advanced Microeconomics II, delivered at PIDE in Spring Semester 2017. The lecture is about 19th Century European History, and how it is deeply entangled with Modern Economic Theory. We cannot understand one without the other. 19th Century European Economic Ideas In Historical Context.… Read More Three Methodologies
Currently, I am teaching a course in Advanced Microeconomics where I have started with the premise that conventional economic theory, both Micro and Macro are fundamentally wrong. The number of ways in which they are wrong cannot even be counted. Instead of enumerating errors, the course is devoted to providing a constructive alternative. A lot… Read More Meta-Theory and Pluralism in the Methodology of Polanyi
{bit.ly/AZideo} Even though very few people have more than a vague idea about them, macroeconomic theories deeply affect the lives of everybody on the planet. Writings of Piketty, Stiglitz and many others, as well as personal experience of the 1% — 99% divide, have created increasing awareness of the deep and increasing inequalities which characterize… Read More Ideological Macroeconomics & Increasing Inequality
WEA Pedagogy Blog 