Lawrence Boland takes issue with both economic methodologists and practicing economists. He argues that there has been too much 'methodology for methodology's sake' and that mainstream economics might benefit by using methodology to take a critical look at economic theory.

A multidisciplinary reference in which over 100 commissioned essays provide details of topics and issues that have developed in recent decades and introduce a variety of emerging themes that economic methodologists have begun to explore. The encyclopedia- type articles discuss such topics as aggregation, evolutionary economics, Otto Neurath, survey methods, Thorstein Veblen, selectionist arguments, the marginalist controversy, game theory, economic sociology, and causality. Each includes an extensive bibliography. Practicing economists and students of the philosophy or history of economics might find useful information and an entry into deeper investigation. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

This book is a comprehensive and often controversial survey of economic methodology.

This is the gritty story of one man's lifelong education in the school of hard knocks, as his journey took him from Harlem to the Marines, the Ivy League, and a career as a controversial writer, teacher, and economist in government and private industry. It is also the story of the dramatically changing times in which this personal odyssey took place. The vignettes of the people and places that made an impression on Thomas Sowell at various stages of his life range from the poor and the powerless to the mighty and the wealthy, from a home for homeless boys to the White House, as well as ranging across the United States and around the world. It also includes Sowell's startling discovery of his own origins during his teenage years. If the child is father to the man, this memoir shows the characteristics that have become familiar in the public figure known as Thomas Sowell already present in an obscure little boy born in poverty in the Jim Crow South during the Great Depression and growing up in Harlem. His marching to his own drummer, his disregard of what others say or think, even his battles with editors who attempt to change what he has written, are all there in childhood. More than a story of the life of Sowell himself, this is also a story of the people who gave him their help, their support, and their loyalty, as well as those who demonized him and knifed him in the back. It is a story not just of one life, but of life in general, with all its exhilaration and pain.

Since its publication in 1982, Beyond Positivism has become established as one of the definitive statements on economic methodology. The book‘s rejection of positivism and its advocacy of pluralism were to have a profound influence in the flowering of work methodology that has taken place in economics in the decade since its publication. This editi

The Handbook of Experimental Economic Methodology, edited by Guillaume R. Fréchette and Andrew Schotter, aims to confront and debate the issues faced by the growing field of experimental economics. For example, as experimental work attempts to test theory, it raises questions about the proper relationship between theory and experiments. As experimental results are used to inform policy, the utility of these results outside the lab is questioned, and finally, as experimental economics tries to integrate ideas from other disciplines like psychology and neuroscience, the question of their proper place in the discipline of economics becomes less clear. This book contains papers written by some of the most accomplished scholars working at the intersection of experimental, behavioral, and theoretical economics talking about methodology. It is divided into four sections, each of which features a set of papers and a set of comments on those papers. The intention of the volume is to offer a place where ideas about methodology could be discussed and even argued. Some of the papers are contentious---a healthy sign of a dynamic discipline---while others lay out a vision for how the authors think experimental economics should be pursued. This exciting and illuminating collection of papers brings light to a topic at the core of experimental economics. Researchers from a broad range of fields will benefit from the exploration of these important questions.

Economic Methodology: An Inquiry presents a clear and accessible introduction to the methodology of economics. An essential introduction to the subject for those who would like to pursue the more specialist literature, explaining both the role of methodology in assisting economists to address fundamental issues and also the different approaches to methodology that are on offer. The book begins with a discussion of the nature and scope of economics as a discipline and of the issues currently facing it. Dow then goes on to introduce some of the central theoretical and empirical issues in economics and demonstrates the need for methodological awareness in approaching these issues. This is followed by a brief account of the methodological ideas that have influenced economics over the last two centuries and a detailed chapter on current methodological ideas, showing how they are discussed today in the field of economic methodology and how these ideas are related to current practice in economics. The book concludes with a discussion of what economics can reasonably be expected to do and what possible future directions the subject might take. Written in a clear and accessible style with suggestions for further reading at the end of each chapter, this book will be the ideal starting point for all those wanting an introduction to the methodology of economics, both as it has developed in the past and as it now stands.

We live in critical times. We face a global crisis in economics and finance, a global ecological crisis, and a constant barrage of international disputes. Perhaps most dishearteningly, there seems to be little faith in our ability to address such difficult problems. However, there is also a more positive sense in which these are critical times. The world's current state of flux gives us a unique window of opportunity for shaping a new international order that will allow us to cope with current and future global crises. In Critical Theory in Critical Times, eleven of the most distinguished critical theorists offer new perspectives on recent crises and transformations of the global political and economic order. Essays from Jürgen Habermas, Seyla Benhabib, Cristina Lafont, Rainer Forst, Wendy Brown, Christoph Menke, Nancy Fraser, Rahel Jaeggi, Amy Allen, Penelope Deutscher, and Charles Mills address pressing issues including international human rights and democratic sovereignty, global neoliberalism, novel approaches to the critique of capitalism, critical theory's Eurocentric heritage, and new directions offered by critical race theory and postcolonial studies. Sharpening the conceptual tools of critical theory, the contributors to Critical Theory in Critical Times reveal new ways of expanding the diverse traditions of the Frankfurt School in response to some of the most urgent and important challenges of our times.

Lawrence Boland takes issue with both economic methodologists and practicing economists. He argues that there has been too much 'methodology for methodology's sake' and that mainstream economics might benefit by using methodology to take a critical look at economic theory.

What is the correct concept behind measures of inflation? Does money cause business activity or is it the other way around? Shall we stimulate growth by raising aggregate demand or rather by lowering taxes and thereby providing incentives to produce? Policy-relevant questions such as these are of immediate and obvious importance to the welfare of societies. The standard approach in dealing with them is to build a model, based on economic theory, answer the question for the model world and then apply the results to economic phenomena outside. Data come in, if at all, only in testing a limited number of the model's consequences. Despite some critical voices, economic methodology too has by and large subscribed to a "theory first" approach to applied economics. Error in Economics systematically develops an alternative to the theory-based orthodoxy. It places the methodical study of evidence at the centre of the scientific enterprise and thus provides a foundation for a methodology of evidence-based economics. But the book does not stop at the truism that claims should be based on the best available evidence. Rather, detailed studies in the areas of measurement, causal inference and policy analysis show what it means for a claim to be evidence-based in the context of a concrete case. The examples discussed concern topics as diverse as consumer price indices, radio spectrum auctions, the transmission mechanism, natural experiments on minimum wages and the evaluation of counterfactuals for policy. Error in Economics is essential reading for economic methodologists, philosophers of science and anyone interested in how claims about socio-economic matters are validated.