IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/jecmet/v3y1996i2p237-259.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The rhetoric of policy relevance in international economics

Author

Listed:
  • William Milberg

Abstract

This paper addresses the link between the generation of economic knowledge and economic policy conclusions. Focusing on the case of research in international trade, It establishes a taxonomy of rhetorical practices used to make such a link. The flexibility observed in these practices contrasts markedly with the rigidity of the conventions of theoretical and empirical knowledge creation. A survey of articles on international trade from four major journals from 1988 to 1992 shows that most policy-relevant research is entirely theoretical, but the incidence of rhetorical practices legitimating policy conclusions depends on the nature of the research method (theoretical or empirical), and the journal in which the research is published. The survey data support the conclusion that the flexibility of rhetorical practices is integral to the legitimation of the knowledge generated by international trade economists.

Suggested Citation

  • William Milberg, 1996. "The rhetoric of policy relevance in international economics," Journal of Economic Methodology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 3(2), pages 237-259.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:jecmet:v:3:y:1996:i:2:p:237-259
    DOI: 10.1080/13501789600000017
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13501789600000017
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/13501789600000017?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. Paul Krugman, 1986. "Strategic Trade Policy and the New International Economics," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262610450, 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. Bianchi, Ana Maria, 2002. "For Different Audiences, Different Arguments: Economic Rhetoric at the Beginning of the Latin American School," Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Cambridge University Press, vol. 24(3), pages 291-305, September.
    2. Ana Maria Bianchi & Cleofas Salviano, 1999. "Raúl Prebisch and the beginnings of the Latin American school of economics: a rhetorical perspective," Journal of Economic Methodology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 6(3), pages 423-438.
    3. William Milberg, 2007. "WP 2006-2 The New Social Science Imperialism and the Problem of Knowledge in Contemporary Economics," SCEPA working paper series. 2006-2, Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis (SCEPA), The New School.

    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. Margaret A. Walls, 1990. "Welfare Cost Of An Oil Import Fee," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 8(2), pages 176-189, April.
    2. William Maloney & Andrés Rodríguez‐Clare, 2007. "Innovation Shortfalls," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 11(4), pages 665-684, November.
    3. Anne Haugen Gausdal, 2008. "Developing regional communities of practice by network reflection: the case of the Norwegian electronics industry," Entrepreneurship & Regional Development, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(3), pages 209-235, May.
    4. Wen Li Cheng & Meng-Chun Liu & Xiaokai Yang, 2005. "A Ricardian Model With Endogenous Comparative Advantage And Endogenous Trade Policy Regimes," World Scientific Book Chapters, in: An Inframarginal Approach To Trade Theory, chapter 7, pages 109-130, World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd..
    5. D. Nayyar, 1996. "Free trade: why, when and for whom?," Banca Nazionale del Lavoro Quarterly Review, Banca Nazionale del Lavoro, vol. 49(198), pages 333-350.
    6. Williams, Gary W., 1989. "Value-Added Research Investments: Boon Or Boondoggle?," 1989 Annual Meeting, July 30-August 2, Baton Rouge, Louisiana 270472, American Agricultural Economics Association (New Name 2008: Agricultural and Applied Economics Association).
    7. Joseph E. Stiglitz, 1997. "Dumping on Free Trade: The U.S. Import Trade Laws," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 64(2), pages 402-424, October.
    8. NoË Hulst & Ronald Mulder & Luc Soete, 1991. "Exports and technology in manufacturing industry," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 127(2), pages 246-264, June.
    9. M E Conroy & A Glasmeier, 1995. "Commentary," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 27(1), pages 1-10, January.
    10. Baldwin, Robert E, 1992. "Are Economists' Traditional Trade Policy Views Still Valid?," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 30(2), pages 804-829, June.
    11. Frances Stewart, 2018. "Revisiting the methodology of Myrdal in Asian Drama 50 years on," WIDER Working Paper Series 109, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    12. Jeffrey Ding & Allan Dafoe, 2020. "The Logic of Strategic Assets: From Oil to Artificial Intelligence," Papers 2001.03246, arXiv.org, revised May 2021.
    13. Liu, Runjuan & Trefler, Daniel, 2019. "A sorted tale of globalization: White collar jobs and the rise of service offshoring," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 105-122.
    14. Torres, Ernani Teixeira & Burlamaqui, Leonardo & Tavares, Maria da Conceição, 1991. "Japão: um caso exemplar de capitalismo organizado," Series Históricas 9265, Naciones Unidas Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (CEPAL).
    15. Fanti, Luciano & Buccella, Domenico, 2018. "Firms Controlled by Owners and Managerial Firms: The 'Strategic' Trade Policy Game Revisited," Economia Internazionale / International Economics, Camera di Commercio Industria Artigianato Agricoltura di Genova, vol. 71(1), pages 51-72.
    16. Frederick W. Mayer & Nicola Phillips, 2017. "Outsourcing governance: states and the politics of a ‘global value chain world’," New Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(2), pages 134-152, March.
    17. Xiaohua Yang & Yi Jiang & Rongping Kang & Yinbin Ke, 2009. "A comparative analysis of the internationalization of Chinese and Japanese firms," Asia Pacific Journal of Management, Springer, vol. 26(1), pages 141-162, March.
    18. Brainard, S. Lael & Martimort, David, 1997. "Strategic trade policy with incompletely informed policymakers," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 42(1-2), pages 33-65, February.
    19. Nathaniel Lane, 2020. "The New Empirics of Industrial Policy," Journal of Industry, Competition and Trade, Springer, vol. 20(2), pages 209-234, June.
    20. Har Sandeep Kaur, 2016. "Services Exports and SAARC Countries: A Comparative Analysis of Growth, Performance and Competitive Advantage," Millennial Asia, , vol. 7(1), pages 20-41, April.

    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:3:y:1996:i:2:p:237-259. 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.