The Methodology Of Economic Model Building Routledge Revivals

The major methodological task for modern economists has been to establish the testability of models. Too often, however, methodological assumptions can make a model virtually impossible to test even under ideal conditions, yet few theorists have examined the requirements and problems of assuring testability in economics. In The Methodology of Economic Model Building, first published in 1989, Lawrence Boland presents the results of a research project that spanned more than twenty years. He examines how economists have applied the philosophy of Karl Popper, relating methodological debates about falsifiability to wider discussions about the truth status of models in natural and social sciences. He concludes that model building in economics reflects more the methodological prescriptions of the economist Paul Samuelson than Popper’s ‘falsificationism’. This title will prove invaluable to both students and researchers, and represents a substantial contribution to debates about the scientific status of economics.

The major methodological task for modern economists has been to establish the testability of models. Too often, however, methodological assumptions can make a model virtually impossible to test even under ideal conditions, yet few theorists have examined the requirements and problems of assuring testability in economics. In The Methodology of Economic Model Building, first published in 1989, Lawrence Boland presents the results of a research project that spanned more than twenty years. He examines how economists have applied the philosophy of Karl Popper, relating methodological debates about falsifiability to wider discussions about the truth status of models in natural and social sciences. He concludes that model building in economics reflects more the methodological prescriptions of the economist Paul Samuelson than Popper’s ‘falsificationism’. This title will prove invaluable to both students and researchers, and represents a substantial contribution to debates about the scientific status of economics.

First published in 1986, this title argues that the successful development of a new microeconomics requires a deeper understanding of methodological individualism and its role in stability analysis. Lawrence Boland expounds a critique of neoclassical models, which, he contends, often fail to include an explicit stability analysis. He demonstrates that much of the sophisticated theoretical literature over the past thirty years can be understood as ad hoc attempts to overcome the deficiencies of such models in the absence of cogent stability analyses. In conclusion, he explains the need to update the theory taught at universities, and to develop a truly individualist version of microeconomics that is consistent with the methodological principles of major neoclassical models. An important contribution to economic methodology, this work is a highly valuable resource for all students and teachers of economics at the undergraduate level.

First published in 1980, Economic Behaviour: An Introduction has been written specifically to speed up the settling-in process of students new to the subject of economics. It starts at the shallow end with the family budget and proceeds via an examination of business decision-taking to the analysis of supply and demand in goods and factor markets. The second half of the book deals with the major macroeconomic aggregates, national income, employment and the price level – giving both Keynesian and Monetarist approaches a fair hearing. The book ends with two chapters on economic policy and concludes with a chapter on methods of building and testing economic models – a subject which is both interesting and useful by the time students have grasped the essence of economic analysis. Throughout, the author makes economics relevant and at the same time presents basic theoretical techniques of analysis and controversies in a manner which makes translation to one of the major standard theory texts as smooth as possible.

While work on economic methodology has increased this has been coupled with a lack of consensus about the direction and content of the discipline. This book reflects this growing diversity with contributions from the leading methodologists.

Economics is dominated by model building, therefore a comprehension of how such models work is vital to understanding the discipline. This book provides a critical analysis of the economist's favourite tool, and as such will be an enlightening read for some, and an intriguing one for others.

Despite the important methodological critiques of the mainstream offered by heterodox economics, the dominant research method taught in heterodox programmes remains econometrics. This compelling Handbook provides a comprehensive introduction to a range of alternative research methods, invaluable for analysing the data prominent in heterodox studies. Providing a solid basis for a mixed methods approach to economic investigations, the expertly crafted contributions are split into three distinct sections: philosophical foundation and research strategy, research methods and data collection, and applications. Introductions to a host of invaluable methods such as survey, historical, ethnographic, experimental and mixed approaches, together with factor, cluster, complex and social network analytics, are complemented by descriptions of applications in practice. Practical and expansive, this Handbook is highly pertinent for students and scholars of economics, particularly those dedicated to heterodox approaches, as it provides a solid reference for mixed methods not available in mainstream economics research methods courses.