IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/jecmet/v12y2005i2p185-196.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Economics in the lab: Completeness vs. testability

Author

Listed:
  • Francesco Guala

Abstract

Two important arguments in the methodological literature on experimental economics rely on the specification of a domain for economic theory. The first one is used by some experimenters in their skirmishes with economic theorists, and moves from the assumption that theories have (or ought to have) their domain of application written in their assumptions. The other one is used to play down the relevance of certain unwelcome experimental results, and moves from the symmetric assumption that the domain of economic theory is more limited than a literal reading of its assumptions would suggest. Of course, only one of them can be right. In this paper I criticise the former, and outline some well-known arguments that strongly point in the direction of the incompleteness of economic theory. Some remarks on the role of methodological arguments conclude the paper.

Suggested Citation

  • Francesco Guala, 2005. "Economics in the lab: Completeness vs. testability," Journal of Economic Methodology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(2), pages 185-196.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:jecmet:v:12:y:2005:i:2:p:185-196
    DOI: 10.1080/13501780500086024
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13501780500086024
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/13501780500086024?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. Smith, Vernon L, 1982. "Microeconomic Systems as an Experimental Science," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 72(5), pages 923-955, December.
    2. Cartwright,Nancy, 1999. "The Dappled World," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521643368, September.
    3. Cartwright,Nancy, 1999. "The Dappled World," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521644112, September.
    4. Hausman,Daniel M., 1992. "The Inexact and Separate Science of Economics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521415019, December.
    5. Hausman,Daniel M., 1992. "The Inexact and Separate Science of Economics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521425230, December.
    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. Fiore, Annamaria, 2009. "Experimental Economics: Some Methodological Notes," MPRA Paper 12498, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Ohana, Marc, 2009. "La réciprocité sur le marché du travail : les limites du laboratoire," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 85(2), pages 239-256, juin.

    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. Giandomenica Becchio, 2020. "The Two Blades of Occam's Razor in Economics: Logical and Heuristic," Economic Thought, World Economics Association, vol. 9(1), pages 1-17, July.
    2. Julian Reiss, 2001. "Natural economic quantities and their measurement," Journal of Economic Methodology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 8(2), pages 287-311.
    3. Marcel Boumans & Mary Morgan, 2002. "Ceteris paribus conditions: materiality and the application of economic theories," Journal of Economic Methodology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 8(1), pages 11-26.
    4. Ricardo F. Crespo, 2012. "Models as signs" as "good economic models," Estudios Economicos, Universidad Nacional del Sur, Departamento de Economia, vol. 29(58), pages 1-12, january-j.
    5. Morten Søberg, 2002. "The Duhem-Quine thesis and experimental economics. A reinterpretation," Discussion Papers 329, Statistics Norway, Research Department.
    6. Irene van Staveren, 2012. "An Evolutionary Efficiency Alternative to the Notion of Pareto Efficiency," Economic Thought, World Economics Association, vol. 1(1), pages 1-6, July.
    7. Dorian Jullien & Nicolas Vallois, 2014. "A probabilistic ghost in the experimental machine," Journal of Economic Methodology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(3), pages 232-250, September.
    8. Søberg, Morten, 2003. "The Duhem-Quine thesis and experimental economics: A reinterpretation," Memorandum 21/2002, Oslo University, Department of Economics.
    9. Francesco Guala & Luigi Mittone, 2002. "Experiments in Economics: Testing Theories vs. the Robustness of Phenomena," CEEL Working Papers 0209, Cognitive and Experimental Economics Laboratory, Department of Economics, University of Trento, Italia.
    10. Suzuki, Tomo, 2003. "The accounting figuration of business statistics as a foundation for the spread of economic ideas," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 28(1), pages 65-95, January.
    11. Kevin D. Hoover, 2016. "The Crisis in Economic Theory: A Review Essay," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 54(4), pages 1350-1361, December.
    12. Itzhak Gilboa & Andrew Postlewaite & Larry Samuelson & David Schmeidler, 2011. "Economic Models as Analogies," PIER Working Paper Archive 12-001, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania.
    13. Kakarot-Handtke, Egmont, 2013. "The Ideal Economy: A Prototype," MPRA Paper 51582, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Mur, Jesús & Angulo, Ana, 2009. "Model selection strategies in a spatial setting: Some additional results," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 39(2), pages 200-213, March.
    15. Itzhak Gilboa & Andrew Postlewaite & Larry Samuelson & David Schmeidler, 2014. "A Model of Modeling," PIER Working Paper Archive 14-026, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania.
    16. Miguel A. Duran, 2007. "Mathematical Needs and Economic Interpretations," Contributions to Political Economy, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 26(1), pages 1-16.
    17. Ole Røgeberg & Morten Nordberg, 2005. "A defence of absurd theories in economics," Journal of Economic Methodology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 12(4), pages 543-562.
    18. Schaefer, Alexander, 2021. "Rationality, uncertainty, and unanimity: an epistemic critique of contractarianism," Economics and Philosophy, Cambridge University Press, vol. 37(1), pages 82-117, March.
    19. Joshua M. Epstein, 2007. "Agent-Based Computational Models and Generative Social Science," Introductory Chapters, in: Generative Social Science Studies in Agent-Based Computational Modeling, Princeton University Press.
    20. Giuseppe Garofalo, 2014. "Irreducible complexities: from Gödel and Turing to the paradigm of Imperfect Knowledge Economics," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 48(6), pages 3463-3474, November.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    experiments; theory; methodology;
    All these keywords.

    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:12:y:2005:i:2:p:185-196. 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.