Message-
From: Alex Tabarrok [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Subject: Re: Questions about the stagflation episode...
I think that today there is a unified macro (Bill recognized
that saying
there wasn't was going out on a limb). Macro is now in a period of
normal science. The profession
I'm actually not a Kuhnian on these issues, but I am trying to see how far
Kuhn's theory goes in accurately describing economic research. Is it
really true that there aren't reigning paradigms in meteorology?
That is not what I meant. Of course there is. Its thermodynamics. However, to an
--- Grey Thomas [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
First off, if macro is at all close to a science,
there should be near unanimity, among macro experts,
Is there unanimity among anthropologists and biologists and physicists and
medical researchers?
Fred Foldvary
=
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Also, almost all the profession
will now also agree that ... a large fraction of what
we call business cycles are the natural responses of an economy to real
shocks.
Alex
Would that fraction include the downturn that followed the 1990s
techno-boom, the recession having begun
On Mon, 3 Feb 2003, William Dickens wrote:
That is not what I meant. Of course there is. Its thermodynamics.
However, to an outsider it looks to impose about as much structure on
weather modeling as the notion of general equilibrium imposes on
macro-modeling - - that is that the devil is in
IIUC, macro was characterized by multiple schools but there was an
outstanding critique that the micro picture was flawed or asbent, which
served to undermine one popular school. The anomaly didn't serve to usher
in a new macro, but unravel some old science, which still has adherents in
a
For the most part a fair summary of what I wrote, but I'm not sure that macro is in a
pre-scientific state. That's giving both too much and too little credit to the current
state of macro. Pre-science implies that eventually there will be a unified
scientific theory. For all the various reasons
I think that today there is a unified macro (Bill recognized that saying
there wasn't was going out on a limb). Macro is now in a period of
normal science. The profession has decided that the corect way to do
macro is using a stochastic dynamic general equilibrium model. Some
people include
Well maybe macro *is* in a scientific state, from your description.
Sticking to Kuhn's terminology, normal scientific activity occurs when
scientists use existing models to solve outstanding issues. From one
perspective, maco is organized around general equilibria, and the fighting
is over the
On Sun, 2 Feb 2003, William Dickens wrote:
don't fit easily into Kuhn's categories. We're in the same situation
as meteorology (only worse because our subjects have minds of their
own). We know that weather systems are chaotic and therefore
unpredictable beyond very limited time frames.
None of the above. Macro was already fragmented and remained fragmented after the 70s.
Hard core monetarism probably did pick-up some adherents due to the events of the 70s,
but the internal dynamic of the profession - - the relentless march of the rational
actor model into all aspects of the
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