Adiós homo económicus

Goodbye Homo Economicus
Anatole Kaletsky
...

Was Adam Smith an economist? Was Keynes, Ricardo or Schumpeter? By the standards of today’s academic economists, the answer is no. Smith, Ricardo and Keynes produced no mathematical models. Their work lacked the “analytical rigour” and precise deductive logic demanded by modern economics. And none of them ever produced an econometric forecast (although Keynes and Schumpeter were able mathematicians). If any of these giants of economics applied for a university job today, they would be rejected. As for their written work, it would not have a chance of acceptance in the Economic Journal or American Economic Review. The editors, if they felt charitable, might advise Smith and Keynes to try a journal of history or sociology.
...
So what is to be done? There are two options. Either economics has to be abandoned as an academic discipline, becoming a mere appendage to the collection of industrial and social statistics. Or it must undergo an intellectual revolution. The dominant research programmes must be recognised as failures and instead of using oversimplified assumptions to create mathematical models that purport to give precise numerical conclusions, economists must re-open their subject to a range of speculative approaches, drawing insights from history, psychology and sociology, and applying the methods of historians, political theorists and even journalists, not just mathematicians and statisticians. At the same time, they must limit their ambitions to explaining only what the tools of economics allow you to understand.

Leer completo...

Comments

[Publicado por: Lucía]

La importancia de la visión interdisciplinaria a partir de la ruptura de paradigmas tradicionales pero poco funcionales, tal como rescata Kaletsky agudamente en este artículo, debiera retomarse tanto en el ánálisis de los problemas económicos del mundo como en los de la humanidad en general. De ser así, algunos de estos pudieran ser resueltos de forma más eficiente o tal vez menos caótica.

Gracias por el artículo.

Saludos,

[Publicado por: Raúl Zepeda]

Pues me parece que la Economia no puede ser juzgada solo por el hecho de producir modelos matematicos, no todo debe estar regido por ello, a final de cuentas, los modelos son alimentados de las hipotesis economicas.

Lo cierto en la era que estamos, es que los dogmas en economia deben terminar, no hay preceptos universales, como muchos creyeron y todavia creen