Re Patrick's [6196]:
> Econometrics "is after all a branch of neo-neoclassical analysis."
> Sorry, Jerry, this is just plain wrong.
In what sense am I 'just plain wrong'?
Let's consider the matter from a number of perspectives:
1) historical
Is it not the case that econometrics was pioneered by
marginalists? Haven't they been its greatest champions all
of these years? Wasn't the journal *Econometrica* created
[in 1933] and nurtured by marginalists? (An interesting footnote,
btw, is that the first editor of *Econometrica*, Ragnar Frisch,
was also the first to employ the terms 'micro' and 'macro'
in economics). What percentage would you guess of all
econometric literature has been developed using explicitly
neo-classical terms and assumptions?
2) if not, then what?
If econometrics is not a branch of neo-classical economics,
then where are the anti-marginalist econometric studies?
E.g. where are the Post-Kenyesian econometric studies?;
where are the Marxian econometric studies? (by which I
mean specifically Marxian studies rather than studies by
Marxists. E.g. Desai is a Marxist, but I don't really
consider his work *Testing Monetarism* to be a
Marxian study. Riccardo, btw, was the first on this list
to make that claim).
3) critique and critical appropriation
If econometrics is not a branch of neo-classical economics,
then where are the *critiques of econometrics* from heterodox
economists which identify the failings of mainstream
econometric theory and list what must be rejected and what
must be critically appropriated and surpassed?
4) just a technique?
Is econometrics just a 'technique' which is theory-neutral
and can be adapted by economists from divergent
theoretical perspectives? I find that claim (which you did
not make) to be naive. Indeed, one can think of econometrics
as technique but it is a technique which has been both
historically and logically tied to marginalism. In the same way,
one could claim that cost-benefit analysis is a mathematical
technique. Yet, isn't cost-benefit analysis a by-product of
marginalist welfare analysis and all that it entails? Is it also
a 'game' that we should play?
5) method
Do you not think that positivist and empiricist logic underlies
the field of econometrics? More ominously, econometrics
has been the technique by which marginalists have 'proven'
their postulates. Is there not a high ideological content to
many of the presumptions of econometrics?
For Allin: you claim in [6198] that econometrics is a
"methodology for empirical analysis". In what sense should
we then *share* the same empirical analytical methodology
with marginalists? How could a field created by marginalists
not reflect marginalist methodological presumptions and
understandings?
What percentage of all econometric studies would you guess
rely on *linear* models? Yet, how many of the real-world
subjects that econometric studies claim to analyze can be accurately
characterized as being linear and can be grasped by linear
models? (btw, I think that Allin was wrong in [6198] to claim
that chaos theory is a 'theoretical framework' whereas econometrics
is [just] a 'methodology for empirical analysis': don't methodologies
for empirical analysis *require* theoretical frameworks to give them
meaning?; can a methodology for empirical analysis developed using
one theoretical framework then be adapted to other theoretical
frameworks or does the empirical analytical methodology embody
certain core concepts of its theoretical framework of origin?; since
econometrics was born from the womb of marginalism how can it not
bear its stamp and theoretical lineage?).
6) the only game in town?
Allin claimed in [6198] that econometrics is the only [quantitative]
game in town. To begin with, I don't think that's a very good
argument for playing that game. At the very least one might
anticipate that all those who believe that econometrics represents
a 'methodology for empirical analysis' would critically consider
the theoretical presumptions of that method before joining the
game. (Of course, on a more practical level this is not an
option for most economists since they know, due to the
hegemony of marginalism, that econometrics is the
'coin of the realm' and thereby serves as a 'measure of value'
for both economists and their work. So for reasons of
career advancement, economists must practice econometrics
or at least take courses in 'how to play the game' before
being admitted into the fraternity of economists. This may be
a practical reason for 'playing the game' but it can not be said
to be a legitimate defense of the game itself).
In [6200] Andrew B mentions Tony Lawson. Lawson, of
course, works for the celebrated Department of Applied
Economics (DAE) at Cambridge University. Is econometrics
the 'only game in town' at the DAE now? Maybe Lawson and
others have come up with better 'games' to play?
In solidarity, Jerry
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