The field of economic methodology has expanded rapidly during the last few decades. This expansion has occurred in part because of changes within the discipline of economics, in part because of changes in the prevailing philosophical conception of scientific knowledge, and also because of various transformations within wider society. Research in economic methodology now reflects not only developments in contemporary economic theory, the history of economic thought, and the philosophy of science; but it also reflects developments in science studies, historical epistemology, and social theorizing more generally. The field of economic methodology still includes the search for rules for the proper conduct of economic science, but it also covers a vast array of other subjects and accommodates a variety of different approaches to those subjects.
The objective of this series is to provide a forum for the publication of significant works in the growing field economic methodology. Since the series defines methodology quite broadly, it will publish books on a wide range of different methodological subjects. The series is also open to a variety of different types of works: original research monographs, edited collections, as well as republication of significant earlier contributions to the methodological literature. The International Network for Economic Methodology (INEM) is proud to sponsor this important series of contributions to the methodological literature.
Edited
By Bruce Caldwell, John Davis, Uskali Mäki, Esther-Mirjam Sent
August 18, 2022
This edited volume provides an in-depth exploration into the influential work of Wade Hands, examining the changing relationship between methodology and the history of economics in connection with contemporary developments in economics. The papers in this volume fall into four parts, each devoted ...
Edited
By Sina Badiei, Agnès Grivaux
June 16, 2022
The book responds to the need for greater clarity regarding the relationship between descriptive, evaluative and prescriptive approaches within positive and normative economics. It also analyses the entanglement between evaluative and prescriptive perspectives within several theoretical frameworks ...
By Vangelis Chiotis
April 29, 2022
The links between self-interest and morality have been examined in moral philosophy since Plato. Economics is a mostly value-free discipline, having lost its original ethical dimension as described by Adam Smith. Examining moral philosophy through the framework provided by economics offers new ...
By Mariusz Maziarz
December 13, 2021
Approximately one in six top economic research papers draws an explicitly causal conclusion. But what do economists mean when they conclude that A ‘causes’ B? Does ‘cause’ say that we can influence B by intervening on A, or is it only a label for the correlation of variables? Do quantitative ...
By Hsiang-Ke Chao
December 02, 2014
This book provides a methodological perspective on understanding the essential roles of econometric models in the theory and practice. Offering a comprehensive and comparative exposition of the accounts of models in both econometrics and philosophy of science, this work shows how econometrics and ...
By Ricardo F. Crespo
March 06, 2020
The Nature and Method of Economic Sciences: Evidence, Causality, and Ends argues that economic phenomena can be examined from five analytical levels: a statistical descriptive approach, a causal explanatory approach, a teleological explicative approach, a normative approach and, finally, the level ...
By Mark Peacock
September 26, 2019
Are human beings motivated exclusively by self-interest? The orthodox theory of rational choice in economics thinks that they are. Amartya Sen disagrees, and his concept commitment is central to his vision of an alternative to mainstream rational choice theory. This book examines commitment as it ...
By Adolfo García de la Sienra
January 08, 2019
Economists have long grappled with the problem of how economic theories relate to empirical evidence: how can abstract mathematized theories be used to produce empirical claims? How are such theories applied to economic phenomena? What does it mean to “test” economic theories? This book introduces,...
By Nicolas Brisset
July 31, 2018
Economists do more than merely describe an external economic world. They shape it in the image of their theories and models. This idea, following the philosophy of language, puts forward that economic theories are performative, and not only descriptive. This idea has become a powerful critique of ...
Edited
By Ragip Ege, Herrade Igersheim
July 30, 2018
The Philosophy of Economics primarily considers the economic agent as a moral subject. Economics, however, has long overlooked the agent’s moral – that is to say, reasonable – dimension, to focus instead on the strictly rational. This volume seeks to address this neglected topic through ...
By Thomas Boylan, Paschal F. O'Gorman
March 07, 2018
With the failure of economics to predict the recent economic crisis, the image of economics as a rigorous mathematical science has been subjected to increasing interrogation. One explanation for this failure is that the subject took a wrong turn in its historical trajectory, becoming too ...
Edited
By Aki Lehtinen, Jaakko Kuorikoski, Petri Ylikoski
November 11, 2016
This book provides the first comprehensive and critical examination of Mäki’s realist philosophy of economics....
