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    Sylllabus On Econ Method

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    Dan Nad
    The course covers economic methodology and examines topics like classic debates, interpreting 20th century economics, limitations of social science, and new developments. Students will discuss readings in seminars led by the professor and student leaders. PhD students will write a term paper and presentation, while MA students will do a critical book review. Guest speaker Phil Mirowski will visit and the professor will not be present for some classes.

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    Sylllabus On Econ Method

    Uploaded by

    Dan Nad
    67 views5 pages
    The course covers economic methodology and examines topics like classic debates, interpreting 20th century economics, limitations of social science, and new developments. Students will discuss readings in seminars led by the professor and student leaders. PhD students will write a term paper and presentation, while MA students will do a critical book review. Guest speaker Phil Mirowski will visit and the professor will not be present for some classes.

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    Sylllabus on Econ Method

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    The course covers economic methodology and examines topics like classic debates, interpreting 20th century economics, limitations of social science, and new developments. Students will discuss readings in seminars led by the professor and student leaders. PhD students will write a term paper and presentation, while MA students will do a critical book review. Guest speaker Phil Mirowski will visit and the professor will not be present for some classes.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    67 views5 pages

    Sylllabus On Econ Method

    Uploaded by

    Dan Nad
    The course covers economic methodology and examines topics like classic debates, interpreting 20th century economics, limitations of social science, and new developments. Students will discuss readings in seminars led by the professor and student leaders. PhD students will write a term paper and presentation, while MA students will do a critical book review. Guest speaker Phil Mirowski will visit and the professor will not be present for some classes.

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    of 5

    ECO 732: Appraising Economics

    Syllabus

    Spring 2006 Bruce Caldwell

    Course Description: Economic methodology course that covers historical and


    methodological issues in economics. Topics to be covered include: introduction to some
    classic methodological topics, interpreting the path of twentieth century economics,
    examining and assessing current and new approaches in economics.

    Course Requirements: The course will principally be run as a seminar, where we discuss
    common readings. Caldwell will lecture and lead discussions on a few topics, student
    seminar leaders will lead the rest. The basic requirement is to have read and thought
    about the material, and be ready to discuss it. The syllabus should be considered
    provisional, and the order of topics may change. The number of topics ultimately covered
    will depend on how quickly we move through the material. Ph.D. students will prepare a
    term paper and classroom presentation on a suitable subject: some possibilities are listed
    at the end of the syllabus. MA students will do a critical book review. I will meet with
    each of you individually to discuss your project.

    Phil Mirowski will visit our class on February 10. I will not be here on March 3, April 7
    and April 21. However, if we can meet on Good Friday, April 14 (normally a holiday) we
    can still meet our quota of classes by meeting for 2 hours (9-11) with a five minute break
    - 115 minutes class time, 5 minute break.

    Course Learning Objectives:

    1. Introduce students to the field of and some classic debates in economic


    methodology.
    2. Introduce students to alternative accounts of the development of economics in the
    twentieth century.
    3. Understand arguments concerning various limitations of social science, both those
    that originate from within the discipline and those from without.
    4. Understand some contemporary new developments within economics, both those
    that challenge and those that extend the discipline.

    Texts:
    Bruce Caldwell, Hayek’s Challenge: An Intellectual Biography of F.A. Hayek.
    Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004. paperback.

    E. Roy Weintraub, How Economics Became a Mathematical Science. Durham:


    Duke University Press, 2002. paperback.
    Most of the articles are from journals that are available online at the library either
    by JSTOR or by journal search. I will also provide copies on Blackboard.

    Course Outline:

    1. Opening Lecture: The Methodology of Economics – An Overview


    a. How I got into it, and where I went
    b. 20th century philosophy of science
    c. What are some of the questions, who are some of the players, what are
    some answers that they have given

    Readings: Bruce Caldwell, “Positivism,” Wade Hands, “Philosophy and


    Economics,” and the intro chapter of Hayek’s Challenge

    2. Background on methodological debates

    Readings, Hayek’s Challenge, chapters 1 – 6 [read this on your own over the next
    month]

    3. Friedman’s Famous Essay – Content and Appraisal

    Principal Reading: Milton Friedman, “The Methodology of Positive Economics,”


    Essays in Positive Economics. Chicago: U. Chicago Press, 1953, 3-43.

    Secondary Readings: Comments on Friedman by Ernest Nagel and Paul


    Samuelson, American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings, May 1963, pp.
    211-19, 231-36; Machlup – Samuelson Exchange, American Economic Review,
    Sept. 1964, pp. 733-39; Uskali Mäki, “Reorienting the Assumptions Issue,”in
    Roger Backhouse, ed. New Directions in Economic Methodology London:
    Routledge, 1994), pp. 236-56; Dan Hammond, “An Interview with Milton
    Friedman,” Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology
    (Greenwich, CT: JAI Press, 1992), pp. 91-118.

    4. Popper: Falsification, Situational Logic, Mark Blaug, Imre Lakatos, and Paris
    Hilton

    Readings: Bruce Caldwell, “Clarifying Popper,” Journal of Economic Literature,


    March 1991, 1-33; Mark Blaug, “Confessions of an Unrepentant Popperian,” and
    Bruce Caldwell, “Two Proposals for the Recovery of Economic Practice,” both in
    Roger Backhouse, ed. New Directions in Economic Methodology. London:
    Routledge, 1994.

    2
    5. McCloskey: Rhetoric of Economics

    Readings: D. McCloskey, “The Rhetoric of Economics,” Journal of Economic


    Literature, June 1983, 481-517; Uskali Mäki, “Diagnosing McCloskey,” and D.
    McCloskey, “Reply to Mäki,” Journal of Economic Literature, September 1995,
    1300-1323.

    6. Interpreting the History of our Discipline – Mirowski and Weintraub

    Readings: Philip Mirowski, “Physics and the ‘Marginalist Revolution’ ”


    Cambridge Journal of Economics, 1984, 361-379; “13 Theses about Economics,”
    manuscript; and perhaps some other pieces. E. Roy Weintraub, How Economics
    Became a Mathematical Science. Durham: Duke University Press, 2002, selected
    chapters

    5. The Strange Case of Friedrich Hayek

    Readings: B. Caldwell, “Hayek and Socialism,” Journal of Economic Literature,


    December 1997, 1856-1890; Hayek’s Challenge, selected chapters.

    6. Empirical Work in Economics

    Readings: Robert Goldfarb, “Now You See It, Now You Don’t: Emerging
    Contrary Results in Economics,” Journal of Economic Methodology, December
    1997, 221-44; Thomas Leonard, “The Very Idea of Applying Economics: The
    Modern Minimum Wage Controversy and Its Antecedents,” Toward a History of
    Applied Economics: Annual Supplement to Volume 32, History of Political
    Economy. Durham: Duke U. Press, 2000, 117-44. (There are other articles in the
    supplement that may be of interest.)

    8. Theoretical Work in Economics

    Readings: avid Kreps, Game Theory and Economic Modelling. Oxford:


    Clarendon Press, 1990. Selected chapters; Franklin Fisher, “Games Economists
    Play: A Non-cooperative View,” Rand Journal of Economics, 1989, 113-24 or
    Franklin Fisher, “Organizing Industrial Organization: Reflections on The
    Handbook of Industrial Organization,” Brookings Papers on Economic Activity,
    Microeconomics, 1991, 201-40.

    3
    9. Economists and Policy

    Readings: Robert Nelson, “The Economics Profession and the Making of Public
    Policy,” Journal of Economic Literature, March 1987, 49-91.

    10. Possible Areas and Readings for Paper Topics and Student Presentations

    a. Biology and Economics

    Readings: Arthur Robson, “The Biological Basis of Economic Behavior,”


    Journal of Economic Literature, March 2001, 11-33; Vernon Smith, “The
    Two Faces of Adam Smith,” Southern Economic Journal, July 1998, 1-19;
    articles in the “Symposium on Evolutionary Economics,” Journal of
    Economic Perspectives, Spring 2002.

    b. Experimental Economics

    Readings: Alvin Roth, ed. Laboratory Experimentation in Economics: Six


    Points of View. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987;Vernon
    Smith, “Economics in the Laboratory,” Journal of Economic Perspectives,
    Winter 1994, 113-31 and “Constructivist and Ecological Rationality in
    Economics,” Nobel Prize Lecture, 2002.

    c. The Rationality Assumption – various literatures here

    Readings: Gary Becker, “Irrational Behavior and Economic Theory,”


    Journal of Political Economy, February 1962, 1-13; John Elster, “The
    Nature and Scope of Rational-Choice Explanation,” in Ullmann-Margalit,
    ed. Science in Reflection, vol. 3, Boston: Kluwer, 1988, 51-65; Richard
    Langlois and Laszlo Csontos, “Optimization, Rule-Following, and the
    Methodology of Situational analysis,” in Maki, et. Al., eds., Rationality,
    Institutions, and Economic Methodology, London: Routledge, 1993;
    Matthew Rabin, “Psychology and Economics,” Journal of Economic
    Literature, March 1998, 11-46; Sumitra Shah on zero-intelligence traders.

    d. New Institutional Economics

    Readings: Douglass North, “Institutions,” Journal of Economic


    Perspectives, Winter 1991, 97-112. Oliver Williamson, “The New
    Institutional Economics: Taking Stock, Looking Ahead,” Journal of
    Economic Literature, September 2000, 595-613. Acemoglu, Daron and
    Robinson, James. Economic Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy:

    4
    Economic and Political Origins. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
    2005; Avner Greif, Institutions and the Path to the modern Economy
    Cambridge: CUP, 2006.

    e. Economists and Policy-Making

    Readings: See the following issues of the Journal of Economic


    Perspectives for representative pieces: Summer 1992 Symposium
    “Economists as Policy Advocates,” Spring 1994, 1996, 1998 Distinguished
    lectures by Olson, Stiglitz, and Aaron; Summer 1997 article by Morin, et.
    Al., “Bridging the Gap between the Public’s and Economists’ views of the
    Economy.”

    f. The Expected Utility Model

    Readings: Paul Schoemaker, “The Expected Utility Model: Its Variants,


    Purposes, Evidence and Limitations,” Journal of Economic Literature,
    June 1982, 529-63; Chris Starmer, Developments in Non-Expected Utility
    Theory: The Hunt for a Descriptive Theory of Choice under Risk,”
    Journal of Economic Literature, June 2000, 332-82.

    g. Feminist Economics

    Readings: Julie Nelson, “Feminism and Economics,” Journal of


    Economic Perspectives, Spring 1995, 131-48; 2 volumes by Marianne
    Ferber and Julie Nelson, eds. Beyond Economic Man (1993) and Feminist
    Economics Today 92003), both U. Chicago Press.

    h. Whither Economics?

    Readings: Prepare a review article on the Symposia in the Winter, 2000


    issue of Journal of Economic Perspectives.

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