Abstract
What on earth are economic theorists like me trying to accomplish? This paper discusses four dilemmas encountered by an economic theorist: The dilemma of absurd conclusions: Should we abandon a model if it produces absurd conclusions or should we regard a model as a very limited set of assumptions that will inevitably fail in some contexts? The dilemma of responding to evidence: Should our models be judged according to experimental results? The dilemma of modelless regularities: Should models provide the hypothesis for testing or are they simply exercises in logic that have no use in identifying regularities? The dilemma of relevance: Do we have the right to offer advice or to make statements that are intended to influence the real world?
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 865-883 |
| Number of pages | 19 |
| Journal | Econometrica |
| Volume | 74 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jul 2006 |
Keywords
- Economic education
- Economic theory
- Fable
- Game theory
- Hyperbolic discounting
- Jungle
- Time response