Conventionalism and Economic Theory

by: Lawrence A Boland

Philosophy of Science, Vol. 37, No. 2. (1970), pp. 239-248.

View FullText article

JSTOR

Reviews [Write a review of this article]

There are no reviews of this article

Find related articles from these CiteULike users

yoav

Find related articles with these CiteULike tags

conventionalism

Abstract

Roughly speaking all economists can be divided into two groups--those who agree with Milton Friedman and those who do not. Both groups, however, espouse the view that science is a series of approximations to a demonstrated accord with reality. Methodological controversy in economics is now merely a Conventionalist argument over which comes first--simplicity or generality. Furthermore, this controversy in its current form is not compatible with one important new and up and coming economic (welfare) theory called "the theory of the Second Best." In this paper I offer a Second Best meta-theory that says that (1) any compromise between simplicity and generality must yield a theory which is "third best" by these Conventionalist criteria; and (2) there exists a better way than a compromise.

@article{citeulike:1953283, abstract = {Roughly speaking all economists can be divided into two groups--those who agree with Milton Friedman and those who do not. Both groups, however, espouse the view that science is a series of approximations to a demonstrated accord with reality. Methodological controversy in economics is now merely a Conventionalist argument over which comes first--simplicity or generality. Furthermore, this controversy in its current form is not compatible with one important new and up and coming economic (welfare) theory called \"the theory of the Second Best.\" In this paper I offer a Second Best meta-theory that says that (1) any compromise between simplicity and generality must yield a theory which is \"third best\" by these Conventionalist criteria; and (2) there exists a better way than a compromise.}, author = {Boland, Lawrence A. }, citeulike-article-id = {1953283}, journal = {Philosophy of Science}, keywords = {conventionalism}, number = {2}, pages = {239--248}, posted-at = {2007-11-21 17:32:26}, priority = {3}, title = {Conventionalism and Economic Theory}, url = {http://www.jstor.org/stable/186672}, volume = {37}, year = {1970} }

RIS record

TY - JOUR ID - citeulike:1953283 L3 - citeulike-article-id:1953283 TI - Conventionalism and Economic Theory JF - Philosophy of Science VL - 37 IS - 2 SP - 239 EP - 248 N2 - Roughly speaking all economists can be divided into two groups--those who agree with Milton Friedman and those who do not. Both groups, however, espouse the view that science is a series of approximations to a demonstrated accord with reality. Methodological controversy in economics is now merely a Conventionalist argument over which comes first--simplicity or generality. Furthermore, this controversy in its current form is not compatible with one important new and up and coming economic (welfare) theory called "the theory of the Second Best." In this paper I offer a Second Best meta-theory that says that (1) any compromise between simplicity and generality must yield a theory which is "third best" by these Conventionalist criteria; and (2) there exists a better way than a compromise. KW - conventionalism AU - Boland, Lawrence PY - 1970/// UR - http://www.jstor.org/stable/186672 ER -

RIS BibTeX