IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/jecmet/v12y2005i4p543-562.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A defence of absurd theories in economics

Author

Listed:
  • Ole Røgeberg
  • Morten Nordberg

Abstract

Theories that involve plainly false and even bizarre assumptions could have an important role in bundling empirical facts and allowing these to be understood, handled and used as modules in the construction of mechanisms by economists with human cognitive limits. Absurd theories would be subcomponents used in a valid explanatory strategy as long as the mechanisms only derive the implications of the facts summarised. This provides a defence and explanation of parts of current practise, but also imposes hard limits on such theorising.

Suggested Citation

  • 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.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:jecmet:v:12:y:2005:i:4:p:543-562
    DOI: 10.1080/13501780500343631
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13501780500343631
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/13501780500343631?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 look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hausman, Daniel M, 1989. "Economic Methodology in a Nutshell," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 3(2), pages 115-127, Spring.
    2. Rosenberg, Alexander, 1992. "Economics--Mathematical Politics or Science of Diminishing Returns?," University of Chicago Press Economics Books, University of Chicago Press, edition 1, number 9780226727233.
    3. Boland, Lawrence A, 1981. "On the Futility of Criticizing the Neoclassical Maximization Hypothesis," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 71(5), pages 1031-1036, December.
    4. Friedman, Milton, 1992. "Do Old Fallacies Ever Die?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 30(4), pages 2129-2132, December.
    5. Machina, Mark J, 1999. "A Challenge to the "Econoclasts": A Commentary on "Rationality for Economists?"," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 19(1-3), pages 107-108, December.
    6. Schoemaker, Paul J H, 1982. "The Expected Utility Model: Its Variants, Purposes, Evidence and Limitations," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 20(2), pages 529-563, June.
    7. Roger Backhouse, 1998. "Book Reviews," The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 5(2), pages 380-385.
    8. David Laibson, 2001. "A Cue-Theory of Consumption," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 116(1), pages 81-119.
    9. Broome,John, 1999. "Ethics out of Economics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521642750, October.
    10. McFadden, Daniel, 1999. "Rationality for Economists?," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 19(1-3), pages 73-105, December.
    11. Ole Rogeberg, 2003. "Preferences, Rationality and Welfare in Becker's Extended Utility Approach," Rationality and Society, , vol. 15(3), pages 283-323, August.
    12. Sen, Amartya, 1993. "Internal Consistency of Choice," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 61(3), pages 495-521, May.
    13. Dawes, Robyn M., 1999. "A message from psychologists to economists: mere predictability doesn't matter like it should (without a good story appended to it)," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 29-40, May.
    14. repec:bla:econom:v:52:y:1985:i:27:p:305-19 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Simon, Herbert A, 1979. "Rational Decision Making in Business Organizations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 69(4), pages 493-513, September.
    16. Hausman,Daniel M., 1992. "The Inexact and Separate Science of Economics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521415019, December.
    17. Hirsch, Abraham & de Marchi, Neil, 1984. "Methodology: A Comment on Frazer and Boland, I [An Essay on the Foundations of Friedman's Methodology]," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 74(4), pages 782-788, September.
    18. Hausman,Daniel M., 1992. "The Inexact and Separate Science of Economics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521425230, December.
    19. Stigler, George J & Becker, Gary S, 1977. "De Gustibus Non Est Disputandum," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 67(2), pages 76-90, March.
    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. Peter Galbács, 2019. "Friedman’s instrumentalism in F53. A Weberian reading," The Journal of Philosophical Economics, Bucharest Academy of Economic Studies, The Journal of Philosophical Economics, vol. 12(2), pages 31-53, May.
    2. Nicola Matteucci & Silvio Minnetti & Paolo Nanni, 2016. "Economia civile e gioco d?azzardo: la rete Slot Mob e l?esperienza delle Marche," PRISMA Economia - Societ? - Lavoro, FrancoAngeli Editore, vol. 2016(3), pages 168-191.

    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. Veisten, Knut, 2007. "Contingent valuation controversies: Philosophic debates about economic theory," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 204-232, April.
    2. Stavros, Drakopoulos, 2021. "The Relation of Neoclassical Economics to other Disciplines: The case of Physics and Psychology," MPRA Paper 106597, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. 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.
    4. Michaël Lainé, 2014. "Vers une alternative au paradigme de la rationalité ? Victoires et déboires du programme spinoziste en économie," Post-Print hal-01335618, HAL.
    5. 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.
    6. Ivan Moscati, 2022. "Behavioral and heuristic models are as-if models too — and that’s ok," BAFFI CAREFIN Working Papers 22177, BAFFI CAREFIN, Centre for Applied Research on International Markets Banking Finance and Regulation, Universita' Bocconi, Milano, Italy.
    7. De Geest, Gerrit, 1996. "The debate on the scientific status of law & economics," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 40(3-5), pages 999-1006, April.
    8. Vatn, Arild, 2009. "An institutional analysis of methods for environmental appraisal," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 68(8-9), pages 2207-2215, June.
    9. Brav, Alon & Graham, John R. & Harvey, Campbell R. & Michaely, Roni, 2005. "Payout policy in the 21st century," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(3), pages 483-527, September.
    10. Michael Hechter, 1994. "The Role of Values in Rational Choice Theory," Rationality and Society, , vol. 6(3), pages 318-333, July.
    11. Philip R. P. Coelho & James E. McClure, 2008. "The Market for Lemmas: Evidence That Complex Models Rarely Operate in Our World," Econ Journal Watch, Econ Journal Watch, vol. 5(1), pages 78-90, January.
    12. Rick Wicks, 2012. "Assumption Without Representation: The Unacknowledged Abstraction from Communities and Social Goods," The American Economist, Sage Publications, vol. 57(1), pages 78-95, May.
    13. Lawrence A. Boland & Irene M. Gordon, 1992. "Criticizing positive accounting theory," Contemporary Accounting Research, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 9(1), pages 142-170, September.
    14. Galbács, Péter, 2019. "A chicagonomics és a közgazdaságtan imperializmusa ["Chicagonomics" and the imperialism of economics]," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(3), pages 229-255.
    15. 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.
    16. Galbács, Péter, 2017. "Tudományunk jelene és jövője a tét. Az International Network for Economic Method 2017. évi konferenciája San Sebastián, 2017. augusztus 28-30 [The present and future of our science at stake. 2017 a," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(10), pages 1089-1096.
    17. Rick Wicks, 2011. "Markets, Governments—," Challenge, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 54(4), pages 65-96.
    18. Marek Hudík, 2013. "Macaulay’s Problem," ICER Working Papers 01-2013, ICER - International Centre for Economic Research.
    19. James Johnson, 2010. "What Rationality Assumption? Or, How ‘Positive Political Theory’ Rests on a Mistake," Political Studies, Political Studies Association, vol. 58(2), pages 282-299, March.
    20. Avner Offer, 1998. "Epidemics of Abundance: Overeating and Slimming in the USA and Britain since the 1950s," Oxford University Economic and Social History Series _025, Economics Group, Nuffield College, University of Oxford.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    as-if theory; economic methodology; welfare economics;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • B41 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - Economic Methodology - - - Economic Methodology
    • D00 - Microeconomics - - General - - - General

    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:4:p:543-562. 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.