Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-hfldf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-02T02:57:35.663Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Beyond Metaphor: Mathematical Models in Economics as Empirical Research

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 September 2008

Daniel Breslau  and
Yuval Yonay
Daniel Breslau
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Tel Aviv University
Yuval Yonay
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Haifa
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

When economists report on research using mathematical models, they use a literary form similar to the experimental report in the laboratory sciences. This form consists of a narrative of a series of events, with a clear temporal segregation of the agency of the author and the agency of the objects of study. Existing explanations of this literary form treat it as a rhetorical device that either conceals the agency of the author in constructing and interpreting the findings, or simply appropriates the appearance of accepted (natural-)scientific method. This article — based on analysis of a research program in economics, a single article that issued from that program, and in-depth interviews with the authors — proposes an alternate interpretation. Drawing on the praxeological “laboratory studies” tradition in science studies, we treat work with mathematical models as involving the interaction of economists with objects (models) that act independently of the analyst's will. The clear separation of the economist's and the models agency, as depicted in the published report, is not the result of a rhetorical rewriting of actual events, but is a practical accomplishment. Every step in the analytical work that preceded the paper is devoted to developing a procedure in which the economists' agency will be completely accountable in terms of accepted practices, and the performance of the model will be distinct and compelling.

Type
Article
Information
Science in Context , Volume 12 , Issue 2 , Summer 1999 , pp. 317 - 332
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1999

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bachelard, Gaston. [1939] 1984. The New Scientific Spirit. Boston: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Baldwin, Robert E. 1992. “Are Economists' Traditional Trade Policy Views Still Valid?” Journal of Economic Literature 30:804–20.Google Scholar
Bazerman, Charles. 1988. Shaping Written Knowledge: The Genre and Activity of the Experimental Article in Science. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
Bernheim, B. D., and Michael, D. Whinston. 1986. “Menu Auctions, Resource Allocation, and Economic Influence.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 101(1):1–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blaug, Mark. 1980. The Methodology of Economics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bloor, David. 1976. Knowledge and Social Imagery. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.Google Scholar
Camic, Charles, and Yu, Xie. 1994. “The Statistical Turn in American Social Science: Columbia University, 1890 to 1915.” American Sociological Review 59(5):773–805.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Collins, H. M. 1992. Changing Order: Replication and Induction in Scientific Practice. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Fleck, Ludwig. 1979. Genesis and Development of a Scient Fact. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Friedman, Milton. 1953. Essays in Positive Economics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Gilbert, G. N., and Michael, Mulkay. 1984. Opening Pandora's Box: A Sociological Analysis of Scientists' Discourse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Gooding, David. 1990. Experiment and the Making of Meaning: Human Agency in Scientific Observation and Experiment. Dordrecht: Kluwer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grossman, Gene M., and Elhanan, Helpman. 1994. “Protection for Sale.” American Economic Review 84(4):833–50.Google Scholar
Helpman, Elhanan, and Paul, Krugman. 1985. Market Structure and Foreign Trade: Increasing Returns, Imperfect Competition, and the International Economy. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Hillman, Arye L. 1989. The Political Economy of Protection. London: Harwood.Google Scholar
Klamer, Arjo, Colander, D. 1990. The Making of an Economist. Boulder, Colo.: Westview.Google Scholar
Klamer, Arjo, and Thomas, C. Leonard. 1994. “So What's an Economic Metaphor?” In Natural Images in Economic Thought: “Markets Read in Tooth and Claw,” edited by Mirowski, Philip, 20–51. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Krugman, Paul, ed. 1986. Strategic Trade Policy and the New International Economics. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Latour, Bruno, and Steve, Woolgar. 1979. Laboratory Life: The Construction of Scient Facts. Beverley Hills, Calif.: Sage.Google Scholar
Livingston, Eric. 1986. The Ethnomethodological Foundations of Mathematics. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Magee, Stephen P., William, A. Brock, and Leslie, Young. 1989. Black Hole Tariffs and Endogenous Policy Formation. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Mayer, Wolfgang. 1984. “Endogenous Tariff Formation.” American Economic Review 74:970–85.Google Scholar
McCloskey, Deirdre N. 1985. The Rhetoric of Economics. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.Google Scholar
McCloskey, Deirdre N. 1990. “Formalism in the Social Sciences, Rhetorically Speaking.” American Sociologist 21(1):3–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McCloskey, Deirdre N. 1994. Knowledge and Persuasion in Economics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Merz, Martina and Knorr-Cetina, Karin D.. 1997. “Deconstruction in a ‘Thinking’ Science: Theoretical Physicists at Work.” Social Studies of Science 27(1):73–111.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mirowski, Philip. 1989. More Heat Than Light: Economics as Social Physics, Physics as Nature's Economics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pickering, Andrew. 1995. The Mangle of Practice: Time, Agency, and Science. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Polanyi, Michael. 1958. Personal Knowledge: Towards a Post-Critical Philosophy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Yearley, Steven. 1981. “Textual Persuasion: The Role of Scientific Accounting in the Construction of Scientific Arguments.” Philosophy of the Social Sciences 11:409–35.CrossRefGoogle Scholar