Complexity, Pedagogy and the Economics of Muddling Through

This paper was first presented at the AEA meetings on complexity. It was later published in a book edited by Massima Alszano and Alan Kirman, Economics: Complex Windows, Springer Publishers.

The Wrong Type of Pluralism: Toward a Transdisciplinary Social Science

When heterodox economists talk of pluralism they generally are talking about pluralism within the economics professionÑthey are asking: how can we have a more pluralistic economics profession? This paper argues that another, perhaps more useful, way to think of pluralism and economics is from the perspective of all the social sciences. When looked in reference to the social science profession rather than in reference to the economics profession, the amount of pluralism increases significantly, since different social sciences follow quite different methodologies. But looking at pluralism from the social science perspective reveals a different type of pluralism problem in social science. While there may be plenty of pluralism within social science as a whole, there is a serious question about whether it is appropriately distributed. This paper argues that heterodox economistÕs agenda should be a greater blending of all the social science departments. It summarizes proposals to do so on both the undergraduate level and graduate level, and explains why supporting variations of these proposals would be a strategy that would further the objectives of most heterodox economists more so than would their current strategy of pushing for more pluralism in economics.Pluralism; heterodox; social science; epistemic game theory

Economists, Incentives, Judgement and Empirical Work

This paper asks the question: Why has the “general-to-specific” cointegrated VAR approach as developed in Europe had only limited success in the US as a tool for doing empirical macroeconomics, where what might be called a “theory comes first” approach dominates? The reason this paper highlights is the incompatibility of the European approach with the US focus on the journal publication metric for advancement. Specifically, the European “general-to specific” cointegrated VAR approach requires researcher judgment to be part of the analysis, and the US focus on a journal publication metric discourages such research methods. The US “theory comes first” approach fits much better with the journal publication metric.

The Making of a Global European Economist

This paper provides some background for considering the future of these two traditions by looking at global Latin American graduate economic programs. It reports the findings of a survey of Latin American global economics programs and discusses the debate between global economics and traditional economics, arguing that there is a role for both, with global economics concentrating on the science of economics, and traditional economics concentrating on the applied policy "political economy" branch of economics--which is much broader than the applied policy training that graduate students get in global economics.

The Myth of the Myth of the Rational Voter

This paper argues that Bryan Caplan’s Myth of the Rational Voter overstates in case against democracy by not dealing with what might be called the historical/instrumentalist argument for democracy. It argues that the case for democracy that he attacks is primarily an academic exercise, which makes his argument against that case also an academic exercise. It further argues that the supposed policy choice that Caplan presents between the market and democracy is not the correct choice, and that his proposals that economists should be given more voting weight in the democratic decision process is inappropriate.

The Professional Development of Graduate Students in Economics

This paper provides insight into the skill development activities of graduate students at U.S. institutions providing graduate education in economics. It documents the extent of student participation in and preparation for research and teaching activities while in graduate school. Over fifty percent of students are involved in teaching related activities including grading, leading recitation sections, and teaching their own sections with and without guidance. Most were generally satisfied with their preparation. About fifty-five percent of graduate students attend economic conferences, twenty percent present papers, twenty-two percent submit papers and ten percent have published. Important differences by assistantship assignments, institutional rank, and gender in such activities are highlighted. Findings suggest that programs could do more to prepare students for participation in professional activities post graduation.

Beyond DSGE Models: Toward an Empirically Based Macroeconomics

This paper argues that macro models should be as simple as possible, but not more so. Existing models are “more so” by far. It is time for the science of macro to step beyond representative agent, DSGE models and focus more on alternative heterogeneous agent macro models that take agent interaction, complexity, coordination problems and endogenous learning seriously. It further argues that as analytic work on these scientific models continues, policy-relevant models should be more empirically based; policy researchers should not approach the data with theoretical blinders on; instead, they should follow an engineering approach to policy analysis and let the data guide their choice of the relevant theory to apply.