Economic methodology

Economic methodology is the study of methods, especially the scientific method, in relation to economics, including principles underlying economic reasoning. In contemporary English, 'methodology' may reference theoretical or systematic aspects of a method (or several methods). Philosophy and economics also takes up methodology at the intersection of the two subjects. General methodological issues include similarities and contrasts to the natural sciences and to other social sciences and, in particular, to: the definition of economics the scope of economics as defined by its methods fundamental principles and operational significance of economic theory methodological individualism versus holism in economics the role of simplifying assumptions such as rational choice and profit maximizing in explaining or predicting phenomena descriptive/positive, prescriptive/normative, and applied uses of theory the scientific status and expanding domain of economics issues critical to the practice and progress of econometrics the balance of empirical and philosophical approaches the role of experiments in economics the role of mathematics and mathematical economics in economics the writing and rhetoric of economics the relation between theory, observation, application, and methodology in contemporary economics.• Wassily Leontief, 1971. "Theoretical Assumptions and Nonobserved Facts", American Economic Review, 61(1), pp. 1-7. Reprinted in W. Leontief, 1977, Essays in Economics, v. 1, ch. III, pp. 24-34. • Mark Blaug, 1992. The Methodology of Economics: Or How Economists Explain, 2nd ed., Cambridge. Description and Preview. • Roger Backhouse and Mark Blaug, 1994. New Directions in Economic Methodology, Routledge. Contents preview. • P.A.G. van Bergeijk et al., 1997. Economic Science and Practice: The Roles of Academic Economists and Policy-Makers. Description & preview links. • D. Wade Hands, 2001. Without Rules: Economic Methodology and Contemporary Science Theory, Oxford. Description and contents preview. • Christopher A.