IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/soceco/v40y2011i4p436-443.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The role of econometrics in economic science: An essay about the monopolization of economic methodology by econometric methods

Author

Listed:
  • Pinto, Hugo

Abstract

Econometrics is seen as the dominant method in terms of applicability, accuracy and efficiency in economic science. It is widely used and other methods have been reduced to marginal contributions. Econometricians behave as if their techniques were universal when in fact they are not. If alternative methods are accepted, one can largely eliminate the restrictions and distance to reality of econometrics. The article debates the pathways for a satisfactory economics in a context where theoretical and methodological pluralism is entering even in mainstream ideas. The historical construction of econometrics as the main method in economics and the limitations and possibilities of this tool are explored, underlining the need of pluralism.

Suggested Citation

  • Pinto, Hugo, 2011. "The role of econometrics in economic science: An essay about the monopolization of economic methodology by econometric methods," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 40(4), pages 436-443, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:soceco:v:40:y:2011:i:4:p:436-443
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1053535711000424
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    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. Davis, John B., 2006. "The turn in economics: neoclassical dominance to mainstream pluralism?," Journal of Institutional Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 2(1), pages 1-20, April.
    2. D. Colander & H. Follmer & A. Haas & M. Goldberg & K. Juselius & A. Kirman & T. Lux & B. Sloth, 2010. "The Financial Crisis and the Systemic Failure of Academic Economics," Voprosy Ekonomiki, NP Voprosy Ekonomiki, issue 6.
    3. Pagan, Adrian, 1987. "Three Econometric Methodologies: A Critical Appraisal," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 1(1), pages 3-24.
    4. Harry Landreth & David Colander, 2004. "Pluralism, Formalism and American Economics," Middlebury College Working Paper Series 0409, Middlebury College, Department of Economics.
    5. Sheila C. Dow, 2012. "Variety of Methodological Approach in Economics," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Foundations for New Economic Thinking, chapter 13, pages 210-230, Palgrave Macmillan.
    6. Engle, Robert & Granger, Clive, 2015. "Co-integration and error correction: Representation, estimation, and testing," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 39(3), pages 106-135.
    7. Ziliak, Stephen T. & McCloskey, Deirdre N., 2004. "Size matters: the standard error of regressions in the American Economic Review," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 33(5), pages 527-546, November.
    8. Katarina Juselius, 2009. "Time to reject the privileging of economic theory over empirical evidence? A Reply to Lawson (2009)," Discussion Papers 09-16, University of Copenhagen. Department of Economics.
    9. Chick, Victoria, 1998. "On Knowing One's Place: The Role of Formalism in Economics," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 108(451), pages 1859-1869, November.
    10. Tom Engsted, 2009. "Statistical vs. Economic Significance in Economics and Econometrics: Further comments on McCloskey & Ziliak," CREATES Research Papers 2009-17, Department of Economics and Business Economics, Aarhus University.
    11. Krugman, Paul, 1998. "Two Cheers for Formalism," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 108(451), pages 1829-1836, November.
    12. Haavelmo, Trygve, 1997. "Econometrics and the Welfare State," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 87(6), pages 13-15, December.
    13. Paul Downward & Andrew Mearman, 2005. "Methodological Triangulation at the Bank of England:An Investigation," Working Papers 0505, Department of Accounting, Economics and Finance, Bristol Business School, University of the West of England, Bristol.
    14. David Hendry & Grayham E. Mizon, 2010. "Econometric Modelling of Changing Time Series," Economics Series Working Papers 475, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    15. Tony Lawson, 2003. "Institutionalism: On the Need to Firm up Notions of Social Structure and the Human Subject," Journal of Economic Issues, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(1), pages 175-207, March.
    16. Roberto Marchionatti, 2003. "Dealing with Complexity: Marshall and Keynes on the Nature of Economic Thinking," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Richard Arena & Michel Quéré (ed.), The Economics of Alfred Marshall, chapter 3, pages 32-52, Palgrave Macmillan.
    17. Tony Lawson, 2009. "The current economic crisis: its nature and the course of academic economics," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 33(4), pages 759-777, July.
    18. David Colander, 2018. "The Death Of Neoclassical Economics," Chapters, in: How Economics Should Be Done, chapter 5, pages 46-62, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    19. G. M.P. Swann, 2006. "Putting Econometrics in its Place," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 858.
    20. Tom Engsted, 2009. "Statistical vs. economic significance in economics and econometrics: further comments on McCloskey and Ziliak," Journal of Economic Methodology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 16(4), pages 393-408.
    21. Hendry, David F, 1980. "Econometrics-Alchemy or Science?," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 47(188), pages 387-406, November.
    22. Lutkepohl, Helmut, 2007. "General-to-specific or specific-to-general modelling? An opinion on current econometric terminology," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 136(1), pages 319-324, January.
    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. Steve Cook, 2016. "Modern econometrics: Structuring delivery and assessment," Cogent Economics & Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 4(1), pages 1152705-115, December.
    2. Radpour, S. & Gemechu, E. & Ahiduzzaman, Md & Kumar, A., 2021. "Developing a framework to assess the long-term adoption of renewable energy technologies in the electric power sector: The effects of carbon price and economic incentives," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 152(C).
    3. Bruce K. Johnson & John J. Perry & Marie Petkus, 2012. "The Status of Econometrics in the Economics Major: A Survey," The Journal of Economic Education, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 43(3), pages 315-324, July.
    4. Radpour, Saeidreza & Gemechu, Eskinder & Ahiduzzaman, Md & Kumar, Amit, 2021. "Development of a framework for the assessment of the market penetration of novel in situ bitumen extraction technologies," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 220(C).
    5. Radpour, Saeidreza & Hossain Mondal, Md Alam & Kumar, Amit, 2017. "Market penetration modeling of high energy efficiency appliances in the residential sector," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 134(C), pages 951-961.

    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. Pinto, Hugo, 2009. "A Economia em Ebulição: Integrando o Plural e a Moral numa Ciência Económica Satisfatória [Economics in Turmoil: Integrating Moral and Plural in a Satisfactory Economic Science]," MPRA Paper 18718, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Peter J. Veazie, 2015. "Understanding Statistical Testing," SAGE Open, , vol. 5(1), pages 21582440145, January.
    3. Thomas Mayer, 2012. "Ziliak and McCloskey's Criticisms of Significance Tests: An Assessment," Econ Journal Watch, Econ Journal Watch, vol. 9(3), pages 256-297, September.
    4. Adrian C. Darnell, 1994. "A Dictionary Of Econometrics," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 118.
    5. Christopher L. Gilbert & Duo Qin, 2007. "Representation in Econometrics: A Historical Perspective," Working Papers 583, Queen Mary University of London, School of Economics and Finance.
    6. Michele Di Maio, 2013. "Are Mainstream and Heterodox Economists Different? An Empirical Analysis," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 72(5), pages 1315-1348, November.
    7. Thomas Mayer, 2012. "Ziliak and McClosky?s Criticisms of Significance Tests: A Damage Assessment," Working Papers 61, University of California, Davis, Department of Economics.
    8. Kim, Jae H. & Ji, Philip Inyeob, 2015. "Significance testing in empirical finance: A critical review and assessment," Journal of Empirical Finance, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 1-14.
    9. Thomas Mayer, 2012. "Ziliak and McClosky?s Criticisms of Significance Tests: A Damage Assessment," Working Papers 126, University of California, Davis, Department of Economics.
    10. Duo Qin, 2006. "VAR Modelling Approach and Cowles Commission Heritage," Working Papers 557, Queen Mary University of London, School of Economics and Finance.
    11. Alexander Libman & Joachim Zweynert, 2014. "Ceremonial Science: The State of Russian Economics Seen Through the Lens of the Work of ‘Doctor of Science’ Candidates," Working Papers 337, Leibniz Institut für Ost- und Südosteuropaforschung (Institute for East and Southeast European Studies).
    12. Libman, Alexander & Zweynert, Joachim, 2014. "Ceremonial science: The state of Russian economics seen through the lens of the work of ‘Doctor of Science’ candidates," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 38(3), pages 360-378.
    13. David Dequech, 2016. "Some Institutions (Social Norms And Conventions) Of Contemporary Mainstream Economics, Macroeconomics, And Financial Economics," Anais do XLIII Encontro Nacional de Economia [Proceedings of the 43rd Brazilian Economics Meeting] 006, ANPEC - Associação Nacional dos Centros de Pós-Graduação em Economia [Brazilian Association of Graduate Programs in Economics].
    14. Garrone Giovanna & Marchionatti Roberto, 2007. "The appropriate style of economic discourse. Keynes on Economics and Econometrics," CESMEP Working Papers 200702, University of Turin.
    15. Edsel L. Beja Jr., 2018. "Testing the easterlin paradox: Results and policy implications," Journal of Behavioral Economics for Policy, Society for the Advancement of Behavioral Economics (SABE), vol. 2(2), pages 79-83, September.
    16. Jennifer K Gippel, 2013. "A revolution in finance?," Australian Journal of Management, Australian School of Business, vol. 38(1), pages 125-146, April.
    17. Beja, Edsel Jr., 2018. "Testing the Easterlin Paradox: Results and Policy Implications," MPRA Paper 101075, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Dierk Herzer & Philipp Hühne & Peter Nunnenkamp, 2014. "FDI and Income Inequality—Evidence from Latin American Economies," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(4), pages 778-793, November.
    19. Gediminas Adomavicius & Jesse Bockstedt & Alok Gupta, 2012. "Modeling Supply-Side Dynamics of IT Components, Products, and Infrastructure: An Empirical Analysis Using Vector Autoregression," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 23(2), pages 397-417, June.
    20. David F. Hendry & Grayham E. Mizon, 2016. "Improving the teaching of econometrics," Cogent Economics & Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 4(1), pages 1170096-117, December.

    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:eee:soceco:v:40:y:2011:i:4:p:436-443. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/620175 .

    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.