Economic methodology to preserve the past? Some reflections on economic theories and their dueling interpretations.

Abstract

Methodological appraisal usually aims at a discourse that contributes to the improvement of knowledge production processes in economics. Attempts by economists, such as that by Gilboa et al. (2022. Economic theories and their dueling interpretations. Journal of Economic Methodology, 1-20) to engage in such a discourse are laudable and needed because they draw on field-specific expertise and experience from economic practice and thereby can steer such discourse into promising directions. However, while Gilboa et al. seem to share the ambition of doing economic methodology in the service of progress, their contribution is not sufficiently self-critical. Instead of seriously considering the diversity of contemporary modeling practices, their position commits them to an outdated view of economics and can be read as licensing the preservation of conceptual and theoretical elements of standard economics that the discipline has long been criticized for. As such, the authors miss out on fully reaching their own ambitions of a practice-based appraisal that pushes economists towards self-critical and forward-looking modeling.