IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/jecmet/v20y2013i4p439-445.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

On the role of reflexivity in economic analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Anwar Shaikh

Abstract

Soros' theory of reflexivity is meant to apply to a variety of social processes. In economics, it implies that many processes will be subject to "boom-bust" patterns in which expected outcomes deviate for a considerable time from the actual path, and that the actual path in turn deviates from the underlying fundamentals. This is in sharp contrast to the reigning notions in orthodox economics. The hypothesis of Rational Expectations (RE) requires that the views of all participants will converge to a "single set correct of expectations" and the Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH) posits that actual outcomes deviate from equilibrium in a random manner save for occasional exogenous shocks. In this paper I show that Soros' argument is similar to the classical and Keynesian notions of equilibration as a turbulent process in which actual and expected variables gravitate around some fundamental value. But Soros makes the important further contribution of emphasizing that the fundamental value itself will generally be affected, but not fully determined, by (diverse) expectations and actual outcomes. I demonstrate that Soros' theory of reflexivity can be formalized and that the resulting system is stable in in the sense that expected and actual variables will gravitate around a possibly moving fundamental value. The paper ends with a discussion of an alternate economic paradigm in which the principle of reflexivity would be central.

Suggested Citation

  • Anwar Shaikh, 2013. "On the role of reflexivity in economic analysis," Journal of Economic Methodology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(4), pages 439-445, December.
  • Handle: RePEc:taf:jecmet:v:20:y:2013:i:4:p:439-445
    DOI: 10.1080/1350178X.2013.859414
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/1350178X.2013.859414
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/1350178X.2013.859414?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. George Soros, 2013. "Fallibility, reflexivity, and the human uncertainty principle," Journal of Economic Methodology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(4), pages 309-329, December.
    2. Kurz,Heinz D. & Salvadori,Neri, 1997. "Theory of Production," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521588676.
    3. Anwar Shaikh, 2010. "Reflexivity, path dependence, and disequilibrium dynamics," Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 33(1), pages 3-16, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Daniel Polakow & Tim Gebbie & Emlyn Flint, 2023. "Epistemic Limits of Empirical Finance: Causal Reductionism and Self-Reference," Papers 2311.16570, arXiv.org, revised Mar 2024.
    2. Julia M. Puaschunder, 2020. "COVID-19 Crisis Economic," Proceedings of the 20th International RAIS Conference, December 6-7, 2020 024pj, Research Association for Interdisciplinary Studies.
    3. Michele Anelli & Michele Patanè, 2023. "The “Perpetually†Efficient Stock Market Nonsense: The Gaslighting Effects," Journal of Finance and Investment Analysis, SCIENPRESS Ltd, vol. 12(2), pages 1-1.
    4. Heinrich, Torsten, 2014. "Resource Depletion, Growth, Collapse, and the Measurement of Capital," MPRA Paper 54044, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Citera, Emanuele & Sau, Lino, 2019. "Complexity, Conventions and Instability: the role of monetary policy," Department of Economics and Statistics Cognetti de Martiis. Working Papers 201924, University of Turin.
    2. Sabiou M. Inoua, 2020. "News-Driven Expectations and Volatility Clustering," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 13(1), pages 1-14, January.
    3. John Davis, 2020. "Belief reversals as phase transitions and economic fragility: a complexity theory of financial cycles with reflexive agents," Review of Evolutionary Political Economy, Springer, vol. 1(1), pages 67-84, May.
    4. Aleksandra Kuzior & Aleksy Kwilinski & Ihor Hroznyi, 2021. "The Factorial-Reflexive Approach to Diagnosing the Executors’ and Contractors’ Attitude to Achieving the Objectives by Energy Supplying Companies," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(9), pages 1-16, April.
    5. Emanuele Citera, 2021. "Stock Returns, Market Trends, and Information Theory: A Statistical Equilibrium Approach," Working Papers 2116, New School for Social Research, Department of Economics.
    6. Kazuhiro Kurose, 2022. "A two-class economy from the multi-sectoral perspective: the controversy between Pasinetti and Meade–Hahn–Samuelson–Modigliani revisited," Evolutionary and Institutional Economics Review, Springer, vol. 19(1), pages 239-270, April.
    7. Antonio Damasio & Hanna Damasio, 2015. "Exploring the Concept of Homeostasis and Considering its Implications for Economics," Working Papers Series 38, Institute for New Economic Thinking.
    8. Massimo Cingolani, 2015. "Sylos Labini su Marx: implicazioni per la politica economica (Sylos Labini on Marx: economic policy implications)," Moneta e Credito, Economia civile, vol. 68(269), pages 81-147.
    9. Keiran Sharpe, 2006. "Effective demand in a stylised Keynesian model of growth," Review of Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(2), pages 173-191.
    10. Rodolfo Signorino, 2003. "Book Reviews," The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 10(2), pages 339-370.
    11. Giorgio Giorgi, 2022. "Nonsingular M-matrices: a Tour in the Various Characterizations and in Some Related Classes," DEM Working Papers Series 206, University of Pavia, Department of Economics and Management.
    12. Luis Daniel Torres-González, 2020. "The Characteristics of the Productive Structure Behind the Empirical Regularities in Production Prices Curves," Working Papers 2016, New School for Social Research, Department of Economics.
    13. A. Rainer & R. Strohmaier, 2014. "Modeling the diffusion of general purpose technologies in an evolutionary multi-sector framework," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 41(3), pages 425-444, August.
    14. Heinz D. Kurz, 2011. "The Contributions of Two Eminent Japanese Scholars to the Development of Economic Theory: Michio Morishima and Takashi Negishi," Chapters, in: Heinz D. Kurz & Tamotsu Nishizawa & Keith Tribe (ed.), The Dissemination of Economic Ideas, chapter 13, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    15. Roger E. Backhouse, 2013. "Understanding Mark Blaug's attitude towards Sraffian economics," Chapters, in: Marcel Boumans & Matthias Klaes (ed.), Mark Blaug: Rebel with Many Causes, chapter 11, pages 146-158, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    16. Luca Timponelli, 2021. "From Pareto to Bridgman: The Operational Turn of Samuelson, Sraffa and Leontief," Annals of the Fondazione Luigi Einaudi. An Interdisciplinary Journal of Economics, History and Political Science, Fondazione Luigi Einaudi, Torino (Italy), vol. 55(1), pages 303-328, June.
    17. Giovanni Scarano, 2013. "Capital accumulation and technical conditions along sustainable growth paths," Departmental Working Papers of Economics - University 'Roma Tre' 0182, Department of Economics - University Roma Tre.
    18. Veneziani, Roberto & Yoshihara, Naoki, 2014. "One million miles to go: taking the axiomatic road to defining exploitation," UMASS Amherst Economics Working Papers 2014-10, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Department of Economics.
    19. Freni, Giuseppe & Salvadori, Neri, 2016. "Ricardo on Machinery: A Textual Analysis," MPRA Paper 73427, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Félix-Fernando Muñoz & María-Isabel Encinar, 2019. "Some elements for a definition of an evolutionary efficiency criterion," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 29(3), pages 919-937, July.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:jecmet:v:20:y:2013:i:4:p:439-445. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/RJEC20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.