Tag Archives: philosophy of economics

Some books on philosophy of economics.The Enlightened EconomistEconomics and philosophy Diane Coyle | freelance economist and a former advisor to the UK Treasury. She is a member of the UK Competition Commission and is acting Chairman of the BBC Trust, the governing body of the British Broadcasting Corporation

The recent book by Jesse Norman simply entitled “Adam Smith” is a pleasure to read. There are of course innumerable books on the founder of the political economy, so why another one? Norman’s book is directed toward that, at times elusive, general educated reader, and has, in my opinion, three objectives: (i) to situate Adam Smith in his time, both intellectually and politically, (ii) to argue that there is a remarkable consistency between the Adam Smith of the Theory of Moral Sentiments,...

Recommended reading on the history and philosophy of science, the philosophy of economics, and Milton Friedman's instrumentalism.EvonomicsEconomists Should Stop Defending Milton Friedman’s Pseudo-science George H. Blackford | former Chair of the Department of Economics at the University of Michigan-Flint

Backgrounder in the history of the development of liberalism. While it written from a Libertarian point of view, it is useful in understanding the historical background. For a more thorough treatment although still a summary backgrounder, see the entry on liberalism at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Where it falls short is assuming the John Locke somehow discovered the foundations of genuine liberalism, when the fundamentals emerged in ancient Greece and where treated...

Since econometrics doesn’t content itself with only making optimal predictions, but also aspires to explain things in terms of causes and effects, econometricians need loads of assumptions — most important of these are additivity and linearity. Important, simply because if they are not true, your model is invalid and descriptively incorrect. And when the model is wrong — well, then it’s wrong.... Simplifying assumptions versus oversimplification.Lars P. Syll’s BlogThe main reason why almost...

Read this as though it were about economics rather than religion.OUP BlogRevitalizing the Epistemology of ReligionMatthew A. Benton |  Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Seattle Pacific University

More philosophy of economics, or foundations, if you prefer. Good read if you are into this. It runes along the lines of what amateur economist and working physicist Jason Smith has been saying about foundations.J. W. Mason's BlogThe Wit and Wisdom of Trygve HaavelmoJW Mason | Assistant Professor of Economics, John Jay College, City University of New York

In my macro critique, I mentioned "meta-narratives" — what did I mean by that? Noah Smith has a nice concise description of one of them today in Bloomberg that helps illustrate what I mean: the wage-price spiral. The narrative of the 1960s and 70s was that the government fiscal and monetary policy started pushing unemployment below the "Non-Accelerating Inflation Rate of Unemployment" (NAIRU), causing inflation to explode. The meta-narrative is the wage-price spiral: unemployment that is...

With all the tired and plain wrong critiques of economics out there that are easily shot down by even the most critical student of economics, I thought I'd try my hand at writing at one that might pass muster. I did write a book, but it was more aimed at taking a new direction; this will be a more specific critique. First, let me avoid the common mistake of using the word "economics" but then exclusively talking about macroeconomics: my critique is being leveled at macroeconomics (macro)....

More on the foundations of economics. Information Transfer EconomicsThe economic way of thinking?Jason Smith