A Scheme for Comparing Competing Claims in Economics

The main purpose of this paper is to suggest a general scheme for the examination of claims to scientific authority. The formulation of a scheme within which rational discourse can take place, and comparisons between competing paradigms can be made, is argued to have particular urgency for the neoclassicists in the light of the emergence of increasingly vociferous dissenting schools in economics, who see themselves either as the opponents of neoclassicism, or not in full agreement with mainstream neoclassicism. No strong position is taken on the relative merits of either camp, as the primary purpose of the paper is to suggest a way of achieving meaningful dialogue through explicit recognition of the way in which research is done. It is argued that a functional descriptive mapping scheme for distinguishing between competing claims may be derived from the work of Ziman, Stewart and, to some extent, Kuhn. By way of example, the suggested framework is used to examine neoclassical claims in the area of growth theory.