Dr. Krugman & Mr. Paul… and Ms. McCloskey
by Benjamin on September 12, 2009
Dr. Krugman & Mr. Paul?
Beatrice Cherrier, wrote a great piece on Krugman’s recent article and his relationship with mathematics today (“let’s have math in economics — but as our servant, not our master” ) and in the past (p. 1213) (“In the food sector we suppose that there are constant returns to scale…”). By coincidence, I was downloading a recent draft of McCloskey’s next book – which she kindly provides free drafts of – when I came across her 2002 article/booklet “The Secret Sins of Economics“.
Herein she makes the argument – which she has been making for years – that economics has become, and continues to be a discipline dominated by two failed approaches to doing scientific work: Qualitative Theorising – i.e. solving equilibria in constructed fantasies – and the use of statistical significance as a test for significance – we focus on the t-test, when you should care about the coefficient.
Both McCloskey and Krugman like the maths, and they want to see its use prosper in economics: But Paul Krugman is seemingly caught between his post-nobel public calls for reform (the Dr. Paul, Beatrice describes) and his academic (past?) self who is knee-deep in axiomatic models (Mr. Krugman). Deirdre McCloskey seems to be whole-heartedly in the game to change the discipline. Maybe it’t time for Mr. Krugman to retire, if he hasn’t already?
Tags: Beatrice Cherrier, crisis, Deridre McCloskey, economic significance, Economics, History of Economics Playground, Paul Krugman
Great! I did not know about that McCloskey piece. We’re having a seminar with all the econ department (not just HET) on Kurgman’s piece and the various replies on friday. Thus, more heat to come….