The Methodology of Economics: Or, How Economists Explain (Cambridge Surveys of Economic Literature) [Paperback]

Mark Blaug (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 31, 1992 | ISBN-10: 0521436788 | ISBN-13: 978-0521436786 | Edition: 2

This book examines the nature of economic explanation. The author introduces current thinking in the philosophy of science and reviews the literature on methodology. He looks at the status of welfare economics, and also provides a series of case studies of leading economic controversies, showing how they may be illuminated by paying attention to questions of methodology. A final chapter draws the strands together and gives the author's view of what is wrong with modern economics. This book is a revised and updated edition of a classic work on the methodology of economics.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"This is a well-written and stimulating book...The summaries of the relevant literature are very good; its critical comments are balanced and fair. Many economists will find it a useful book". Journal of Economic Literature

"...If one is looking for a single book that might safely be put into the hands of economics students to inform them about relevant developments in the philosophy of science, about the tradition of self-conscious appraisal in their own discipline, and about the empirical substance of what they will almost everywhere be taught as mainstream economics, then this is it." Neil De Marchi, The Economic Journal

Book Description

A revised and updated edition of a classic work on the nature of economic explanation introduces current thinking in the philosophy of science, looks at the status of welfare economics and provides a series of case studies of leading economic controversies as well.

Product Details

• Paperback: 316 pages
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press; 2 edition (July 31, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0521436788
• ISBN-13: 978-0521436786
• Product Dimensions: 6 x 0.7 x 9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #382,200 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A Classic and a Benchmark April 17, 2002

By Matthias Huehn

Format:Hardcover

This old and very short book on methodology enables novices to enter a philosophocal debate that is fragmented and decentralised. The book uses simple language and tries to educate not impress. Together with Alan Chalmers Mark Blaug is the best starting point for any student. However, it stops in the 1980s and therefore cuts off the debate at a critical point of time.

13 of 16 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Time to move on from Lakatos February 23, 2002

By Rafe Champion

Format:Paperback

The first edition of this book in 1980 established Blaug as a leading influence in this field, especially in his insistence on the importance of the testability or falsifiability of economic theories.

The first part of the book is a clearly written introduction to the modern philosophy of science. Popper is identified as the pivotal figure between the old positivism and the new heterodoxy of Kuhn, Lakatos and Feyerabend. Unfortunately he is still depicted as a "falsificationist" rather than a critical rationalist, a serious mistake in the first edition which might well have been corrected. Hands and Caldwell have subsequently made that step so perhaps Blaug will fix this in the second revised edition. Lakatos may have been the major influence in this matter of misunderstanding Popper, in any case the time has surely come to move on with the assistance of Popper's theory of metaphysical research programs (which are subjected to critical appraisal) rather than the theory of "untouchable" hard cores that was the legacy of Lakatos.

Blaug may be ready to make a decisive step in this area. Recently, meditating on the outcome of the second Greek Islands conference on methodology, he wrote "I have come slowly and extremely reluctantly to the view that they [the Austrians] are right and that we have all been wrong [on Walrasian general equilibrium]". This concession to the Austrians is a major shift for Blaug and this may enable him to take the next step and perceive the overlap between the Austrian assumptions and the major elements of Popper's program. There include realism, non-determinism, the flux of time, methodological individualism and the uncertainty of knowledge

The second part treats the history of economic methodology.... This provides an opportunity to rubbish the modern Austrians for their a priori heuristic postulates (this is the old, or rather the younger, Blaug speaking). There is a chapter on falsificationism, and various other "isms" including operationalism, Friedman's instrumentalism and Samuelson's descriptivism. Unfortunately the treatment of instrumentalism and descriptivism (or conventionalism) falls far short of that which is offered in Boland's The Foundations of Economic Method (1982)

The heart and soul of the book should be the third part which is a methodological appraisal of various aspects of the neoclassical research program. As C Wright Mills pointed out, discussion of methodology in isolation from actual work in progress is unlikely to be fruitful, so this part of the book should stand as a test (a possible falsification) of the value of Blaug's methodological apparatus. It might have been even more helpful to include two of his own special areas of interest - education and the arts, in this section, but perhaps this work is not a part of the neoclassical research program.

The fourth part is a short commentary on what we have now learned about economics with advice on falsificationism, applied econometrics and the best way forward. Read more ›

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars It's the handbook of methodology for undergraduate students June 19, 1999

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

It's a great book to introduce undergraduate students on economic method topics. Mark Blaug first provides an overall vision of philosophy of science, then comments the method of the economists of the XIXth and XXth century, and finally in the third part he shows the discussion on certain topics such as theory of the firm, human capital capital firm, etc, excellent to start a course-conclusion paper. It's great!

5.0 out of 5 stars This great book makes you rethink the whole economic field November 21, 2011

By Robert Kirk VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

I've read many economic books over my career and this is a book that you want to read early in your studies. It will simply blow your mind and enable you to question everything you've thought about in the field of economics. I have scribbled down the many author's names sprinkled throughout the book that refute and destroy earlier economic "laws". This should be some interesting reading in the future. I've read a few of Blaug's books and his wealth of knowledge and ability to speak to his reader are tough to match. If you are looking for a great author and wonderful book to help you round out your economics knowledge, look no further.

5.0 out of 5 stars Magnificent and Essential Survey of Economic Method May 22, 2010

By Rudolph V. Dusek

Format:Unknown Binding|Amazon Verified Purchase

Blaug is noted as author of Economic Theory in Retrospect, a brilliant "presentist" reconstruction of past economic thought in terms of modern mathematical models. In the beginning of early editions of that work he included a survey of economics method which is considerably expanded in this book.

He surveys the traditional nineteenth century economic methodologists, such as Neville Keynes (J. M. Keynes' father), The scope and method of political economy. by John Neville Keyne John Stuart Mill, A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive and Cairns The Character and Logical Method of Political Economy. He also gives a general clear and condensed overview of the philosophies of science of Popper Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge (Routledge Classics), Thomas Kuhn The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Imre Lakatos Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge: Volume 4: Proceedings of the International Colloquium in the Philosophy of Science, London, 1965, and Paul Feyerabend Against Method (Fourth Edition).... In the second half of the book he treats a number of methodological issues concerning specific theories and disputes within economics, including the Friedman-Samuelson debate about "realism of assumptions" vs. instrumentalism.

There are a few minor slips, such as his identification of Lakatos' "hard core" with Joseph Schumpeter's "vision." The hard core are the central assumptions of a theory that are not given up in the face of counter-evidence, but are saved by modified auxiliary hypotheses. Schumpeter's "vision" is more the ideological and metaphysical background of a theory, more like Kuhn's paradigm. Rather the "vision" is the background presupposition for Lakatos' "negative heuristic," the injuction not to give up the hard core.

Overall Blaug's book is the most valuable survey of economic methodology available. I personally much prefer the first two editions to the most recent edition, as in the latter he gives up much of his position held in the first two editions. Read more ›