IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/col/000089/010013.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Mainstream Economics in the Early 21st Century: What, How and How Far

Author

Listed:
  • Hernán Vallejo

Abstract

This essay defines economics as a social science characterized by a particular and evolving way of thinking, and explores its scope and limitations. It is argued that economics has a strong normative nature and that it is ideological by construction. Thus, economics is better suited to improve our understanding of economic phenomena, contribute to solve better current problems and generate a sufficiently large and lasting consensus, than to prove anything for sure. Some reasons for persistent differences among economists are trade-offs, problems measuring economic variables and deficient definitions for key concepts. Thus, economics education should seek constructing explicitly the economics way of thinking and maintaining focus on optimal policy intervention, while its practice should aim at clarity, transparency, tractability, consistency, replicability, applicability, relevance and responsibility.

Suggested Citation

  • Hernán Vallejo, 2012. "Mainstream Economics in the Early 21st Century: What, How and How Far," Documentos CEDE 10013, Universidad de los Andes, Facultad de Economía, CEDE.
    • Handle: RePEc:col:000089:010013
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://repositorio.uniandes.edu.co/bitstream/handle/1992/41018/dcede2012-19.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. François Facchini & Mickaël Melki, 2011. "Optimal Government Size and Economic Growth in France (1871-2008): An explanation by the State and Market Failures," Documents de travail du Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne 11077, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1), Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne.
    2. Facchini, François & Melki, Mickaël, 2013. "Efficient government size: France in the 20th century," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 1-14.
    3. Facchini, François & Melki, Mickaël, 2013. "Efficient government size: France in the 20th century," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 1-14.
    4. Friedman, Milton, 1966. "Essays in Positive Economics," University of Chicago Press Economics Books, University of Chicago Press, number 9780226264035, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. François Facchini & Mickaël Melki, 2012. "Political Ideology and Economic Growth in a Democracy: The French Experience, 1871 - 2009," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) halshs-00662838, HAL.
    2. Alessandra Cepparulo & Gilles Mourre, 2020. "How and How Much? The Growth-Friendliness of Public Spending through the Lens," European Economy - Discussion Papers 132, Directorate General Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN), European Commission.
    3. Alimi, R. Santos, 2018. "Growth effect of government expenditures in West African countries: A nonlinear framework," MPRA Paper 99108, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Mar 2019.
    4. Yılmaz Onur ARİ & Ümit YILDIZ, 2018. "Causality Relationship Between Transfer Expenditures And Labor Force Participation Rate in Turkey," Eastern European Journal for Regional Studies (EEJRS), Center for Studies in European Integration (CSEI), Academy of Economic Studies of Moldova (ASEM), vol. 4(2), pages 58-72, December.
    5. Trofimov, Ivan D., 2020. "The optimum size of public education spending: panel data evidence," MPRA Paper 106847, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Ferris, J. Stephen & Voia, Marcel C., 2015. "The effect of federal government size on private economic performance in Canada: 1870–2011," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 49(C), pages 172-185.
    7. Juyong Lee & Youngsang Cho & Jungwoo Shin, 2019. "A Study on the Optimal Ratio of Research and Development Investment in the Energy Sector: An Empirical Analysis in South Korea," Energies, MDPI, vol. 12(2), pages 1-12, January.
    8. Sami Saafi & Meriem Bel Haj Mohamed & Abdeljelil Farhat, 2017. "Untangling the causal relationship between tax burden distribution and economic growth in 23 OECD countries: Fresh evidence from linear and non-linear Granger causality," European Journal of Comparative Economics, Cattaneo University (LIUC), vol. 14(2), pages 265-301, December.
    9. Alimi, R. Santos, 2014. "Does Optimal Government Size Exist for Developing Economies? The Case of Nigeria," MPRA Paper 56073, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Trofimov, Ivan D., 2020. "Health Care Spending and Economic Growth: Armey-Rahn Curve in a Panel of European Economies," MPRA Paper 106705, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. J. Stephen Ferris & Marcel-Cristian Voia, 2014. "Does Aggregate Government Size Effect Private Economic Performance in Canada?," Carleton Economic Papers 14-13, Carleton University, Department of Economics.
    12. Emilian Dobrescu, 2015. "BARS curve in Romanian economy," The AMFITEATRU ECONOMIC journal, Academy of Economic Studies - Bucharest, Romania, vol. 17(39), pages 693-693, May.
    13. François Facchini & Mickaël Melki, 2012. "Political Ideology and Economic Growth in a Democracy: The French Experience, 1871 - 2009," Post-Print halshs-00662838, HAL.
    14. Gabriel Di Bella & Oksana Dynnikova & Mr. Slavi T Slavov, 2019. "The Russian State’s Size and its Footprint: Have They Increased?," IMF Working Papers 2019/053, International Monetary Fund.
    15. François Facchini & Mickaël Melki, 2012. "Political Ideology and Economic Growth in a Democracy: The French Experience, 1871 - 2009," Documents de travail du Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne 12003, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1), Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne.
    16. Carmeci, Gaetano & Mauro, Luciano & Privileggi, Fabio, 2018. "Growth Maximizing Government Size and Social Capital," Department of Economics and Statistics Cognetti de Martiis. Working Papers 201804, University of Turin.
    17. Ndanshau, Michael O.A. & Mdadila, Kenneth, 2023. "Government Expenditure and Economic Growth Nexus in Tanzania," African Journal of Economic Review, African Journal of Economic Review, vol. 11(3), June.
    18. Sabrina Auci & Laura Castellucci & Manuela Coromaldi, 2021. "How does public spending affect technical efficiency? Some evidence from 15 European countries," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 73(1), pages 108-130, January.
    19. Ant—nio Afonso & Ludger Schuknecht & Vito Tanzi, 2023. "The size of government," Chapters, in: António Afonso & João Tovar Jalles & Ana Venâncio (ed.), Handbook on Public Sector Efficiency, chapter 1, pages 6-31, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    20. Suleyman Kasal, 2023. "Analysing The Armey Curve Based On The Fourier Cointegration Approach For Turkey," Economic Annals, Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Belgrade, vol. 68(236), pages 139-158, January –.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    economic methodology; economic education;

    JEL classification:

    • A20 - General Economics and Teaching - - Economic Education and Teaching of Economics - - - General
    • B20 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought since 1925 - - - General
    • B40 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - Economic Methodology - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:col:000089:010013. 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: Universidad De Los Andes-Cede (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ceandco.html .

    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.