Unobservability, tractability and the battle of assumptions

Journal of Economic Methodology

Volumn 12, Issue 3, 2005, Pages 383-406

  Hindriks, Frank A ^a  

^a ERASMUS UNIVERSITY ROTTERDAM   (Netherlands)

Author keywords

F twist; Measurement; Musgrave; Negligibility assumption; Progress; Tractability assumption; Unobservables; Unrealistic assumptions

Indexed keywords

EID: 26444603821     PISSN: 1350178X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/13501780500223619     Document Type: Article

References (22)

1. Brensnahan, T.F. (1989) 'Empirical analysis of industries with market power', in R. Schmalensee and R. Willig (eds) Handbook of Industrial Organization, Vol. II, North-Holland, pp. 1012-57.
2. Bronfenbrenner, M. (1966) 'A 'middlebrow' introduction to economic methodology', in S.R. Krupp (ed.) The Structure of Economic Science: Essays on Methodology, London: Prentice-Hall, pp. 5-24.
3. Church, J.R. and Ware, R. (2000) Industrial Organization: A Strategic Approach, Boston: McGraw-Hill.
4. De Marchi, N. (1988) 'Popper and the LSE economists', in N. De Marchi (ed.) The Popperian Legacy in Economics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 139-66.
5. Fisher, F.M. (1987) 'On the misuse of the profit-sales ratio to infer monopoly power', RAND Journal of Economics 18: 384-96.
6. Friedman, M. (1953) 'The methodology of positive economics', in Essays in Positive Economics, Chicago: Chicago University Press, pp. 3-43.
7. Hall, R.E. (1986) 'Market structure and macro-economic fluctuations', Brookings Papers on Economic Activity 2: 285-338.
8. Hall, R.E. (1987) 'Productivity and the business cycle', Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy 27: 421-44.
9. Hall, R.E. (1988) 'The relation between price and marginal cost in US industry', Journal of Political Economy 96: 921-47.
10. Hindriks, F.A. (2005) 'Tractability assumptions and the Musgrave-Maki typology', Mimeo.
11. Hulten, C.R. (1986) 'Productivity change, capacity utilization, and the sources of efficiency growth', Journal of Econometrics 33: 31-50.
12. Mäki, U. (1998) 'Aspects of realism about economics', Theoria 13: 301-19.
13. Mäki, U. (2000) 'Kinds of assumptions and their truth. Shaking an untwisted F-twist', Kyklos 53: 303-22.
14. Mayer, T. (1999) 'The domain of hypotheses and the realism of assumptions', Journal of Economic Methodology 6: 319-30.
15. Musgrave, A. (1981) '"Unrealistic assumptions" in economic theory: the F-twist untwisted', Kyklos 34: 377-87.
16. Oliveira Martins, J., Scarpetta, S. and Pilat, D. (1996) 'Mark-up-pricing, market structure and the business cycle', OECD Economic Studies 27: 71-105.
17. Roeger, W. (1995) 'Can imperfect competition explain the difference between primal and dual productivity measures? Estimates for US manufacturing', Journal of Political Economy 103: 316-30.
18. Solow, R.M. (1957) 'Technical change and the aggregate production function', Review of Economics and Statistics 39: 312-20.
19. Sutton, J. (2000) Marshall's Tendencies. What Can Economists Know?, Cambridge (MA): MIT Press.
20. Sutton, J. (2002) 'Marshall's tendencies: a reply', Economics and Philosophy 18: 55-62.
21. Takayama, A. (1985) Mathematical Economics. 2nd edn, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
22. Zamora Bonilla, J.P. (1999) 'Verisimilitude and the scientific strategy of economic theory', Journal of Economic Methodology 6: 331-49.