Orthodoxy, Renewal and Complexity in Contemporary Economics

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Abstract (may include machine translation)

The nature of mainstream orthodoxy in contemporary economics is proliferating social and academic disillusionment with what the profession managed to deliver in terms of "useful knowledge", particularly in pre-empting and later managing the ongoing finan-cial crisis. The neoclassical paradigm, however, is by now facing challenges both from the natural sciences and economic research projects influenced by those. At this point, there is room for paradigmatic as well as incremental changes in the discipline; the latter is already in the making. 1 Der orthodoxe Mainstream der heutigen Wirtschaftswissenschaften enttäuscht Gesell-schaft und Wissenschaft hinsichtlich des Bestands an "nützlichem Wissen", insbesondere mit Blick auf die Vermeidung und später das Management der gegenwärtigen Finanzkri-se. Allerdings wird das neoklassische Paradigma inzwischen sowohl seitens der Natur-wissenschaften als auch von dadurch beeinflussten ökonomischen Forschungsprojekten herausgefordert. Insofern besteht die Möglichkeit paradigmatischer wie inkrementeller Veränderungen der Disziplin; letztere sind bereits in Ansätzen erkennbar. This contribution attempts at providing an explanation for how economics with its peculiar methodology of analysis and focus on modelling emerged. It fur-thermore tries to answer the intriguing question, haunting the discipline over the past 150 years or so, namely if, and to what degree analytical methods, that have been developed in and for the natural sciences, are apt for application in a differ-ent field. For the latter purpose, some of the fundamental issues of philosophy of science have to be addressed, such as the uses and misuses of reductionism and equilibrium analysis. The rather fundamental changes that have emerged in the natural sciences since the onset of neoclassical analysis are concerned as well.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)51-82
Number of pages32
JournalZEITSCHRIFT FUR STAATS- UND EUROPAWISSENSCHAFTEN
Volume7
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - 2009

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