Posts Tagged ‘economic methodology’
What does economics have to do with riots, some may think: isn’t economics all about markets, employment and inflation? Well, the answer is NO under many respects. It is no mere coincidence that a resurgence of mass protest has accompanied the recent financial turmoil and austerity measures in many countries – from anti-government demonstrations in […]
Filed under: Economic sociology, Economic theory, Social networks, Social science methodology | Leave a Comment
Tags: 2011 UK riots, Agent-based models, Civil violence, Economic analysis, economic methodology, Mixed methods, Public policy analysis, Social simulation, social theory, Trans-disciplinarity, Web-based social networks
Do economists, as a professional community, behave like sheep -all following the sheepdog? Or like fish, moving altogether in schools? However bizarre these analogies might seem at first sight, they have been applied successfully to finance, where the concept of “herding behaviour” denotes cases in which a majority of traders adopt a shared, or very similar, pathway. It […]
Filed under: Economic sociology, Economic theory, Philosophy of economics, Research, Social science methodology | Leave a Comment
Tags: Economic analysis, economic methodology, Economic profession, Economists, Sociology, Sociology of economics
Of all the economic bubbles … few have burst more spectacularly than the reputation of economics itself. So wrote The Economist in July 2009, commenting on the financial crisis. In the last few years, many have pointed their fingers at the discipline and its incapacity to predict the crisis, let alone to devise remedies for […]
Filed under: Economic theory, Philosophy of economics, Social science methodology | 1 Comment
Tags: Economic analysis, economic methodology, History of economics, Qualitative data, Quantitative methods, Social science data, Statistical modeling, Trans-disciplinarity
I’m just back from the World Statistics Congress, a grand event that took place in Dublin in the last few days, bringing together statisticians from all over the world and from all sorts of institutions -from government offices and international institutions to academia and private companies. The event prompts me to think more about my […]
Filed under: Research, Social science methodology | Leave a Comment
Tags: 2011 UK riots, economic methodology, Quantitative methods, Social science data, social theory, Statistical modeling
Would you believe that one would invest years of time and energy to study an older economics writer in the hope to get the Nobel Prize? Well, that sounds pretty unlikely… Everyone in the history of economics community complains that the field is so disregarded these days. The Nobel prize, don’t even think about it. […]
Filed under: Consumer behaviour, Economic theory, Philosophy of economics | Leave a Comment
Tags: Behavioral economics, Consumer choice, Consumer demand, Economic analysis, economic methodology, Experimental economics, History of economics
Randomness in consumer choice
Would it be reasonable for a social scientist to study human behaviours and interactions under the assumption that people make choices at random –that is, they just pick up an option from a given probability distribution? Few social scientists would go as far as to think this could be a realistic representation of how we […]
Filed under: Economic theory, Philosophy of economics, Social science methodology | Leave a Comment
Tags: Consumer choice, Consumer demand, Economic analysis, economic methodology, Experimental economics, History of economics, Random choice, Rational choice
Having just reviewed “Poor Economics“, a new book by Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo (high on my reading list…), The Economist is hosting a debate inviting prominent economists to discuss the question of whether randomised trials can be regarded as the future of economics. The debate is definitely interesting and the viewpoints expressed quite relevant. […]
Filed under: Philosophy of economics, Social networks, Social science methodology | Leave a Comment
Tags: Economic analysis, economic development, economic methodology, Network Analysis, poverty alleviation, Quantitative methods, randomized trials, Social science data
Today, the history of economic thought is attracting renewed attention from public opinion and the media. In the aftermath of the financial crisis, many are dusting off Keynes and the forms of government intervention he inspired in the 1950s-60s. Do they offer lessons that could still be valuable today, as faith in the virtues of […]
Filed under: Economic theory, Philosophy of economics, Social science methodology | 1 Comment
Tags: Economic analysis, economic methodology, History of economics, Public policy analysis
Interface 4
Just come back from the 4th edition of the “Interface between economic theory and history of theories” workshop. It all started with an initiative by Michel De Vroey in Louvain in 2007, I then contributed to making it a regular event by organising the 2nd edition in Paris two years ago. This year, the event […]
Filed under: Economic theory, Philosophy of economics, Social science methodology | Leave a Comment
Tags: Economic analysis, economic methodology, History of economics
Social science scholarly activity has undergone dramatic transformations. Today, an academic is expected to be fully integrated in the wider international community and to meet ever-rising productivity standards in both teaching and research. The increasing pressure to ensure performance, accountability, and financial sustainability overwhelmingly targets new generations of researchers with issues that few of their […]
Filed under: Social science methodology | 1 Comment
Tags: economic methodology, Open access to scientific publications, Public policy analysis, Qualitative data, Quantitative methods, Research ethics, Social science data, Social simulation, Trans-disciplinarity
