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If you've got an economics degree, you should know that it isn't a person not monolithic. Many economists "admit" to falsifiability.

• tomrod 8y ago
  Hear here. To add to this, econometricians and statisticians are leading the calls for causal inference. Economists embedded in Google, Netflix, Yahoo, Microsoft, etc. are at the forefront of the fields, speaking to how theory and practice play out (sometimes called techonomists). While economics doesn't lend itself a physics or psychology laboratory to teach its basic principles, that doesn't mean the field isn't concerned with causal impact of policies suggested by theory. Personally, my observation is that making sure falsifiability and generalizability of theory is at the heart of modern economic discussion.
• dredmorbius 8y ago
  I'm referring to the curriculum as generally taught at the university level. Samuelson & Nordhaus, as I studied it; today likely Mankiw or Krugman. Or if you prefer to state another text, please do, and the core propositions and principles of the field.
  • xapata 8y ago
    You mean Econ 101 with Mankiw's textbook? That's not a curriculum, that's a single class. Besides, I doubt any undergraduate program really demonstrates what a professional researcher does.
    • dredmorbius 8y ago
      You're being peculiarly careful to reject what I say without answering my questions or offer any concrete alternatives. Again: if you prefer to state another text (or texts), please do, and the core propositions and principles of the field.
      • xapata 8y ago
        You might have edited the comment after I read it. Or maybe I just read too quickly. In my view, the field of economics is more defined by journal articles and discussions among economists than by textbooks. For many economists, a theory is more compelling if it is accompanied by a formal model, an illustration of the implied dynamics, and a discussion of how observed history is (in)consistent with those dynamics.
        • dredmorbius 8y ago
          I did not. And you're still evading answering.
          • xapata 8y ago
            Strange, I thought I answered the spirit of the question. You asked what defines the current "thought" of the field, and how it views empiricism, no? Or are you really curious about how undergraduates are taught, despite the distinction between the undergraduate curriculum and the professional researcher's view? My introductory economics course used Mankiw's textbook. If I remember correctly, it didn't even use calculus. Imagine a university physics course doing that. I think of that more like high school level. Come to think of it, AP Economics probably would have let me skip that class. Looking over at my bookshelf, I see Wooldridge's "Introductory Econometrics". That's a pretty good one, with plenty of empirical work. I can't spot my macroeconomics textbook, but I remember it evaluating each model by how consistent its predictions were with observed behavior. ... it occurs to me that someone ought to update Wooldridge's exercises for R-language or Python ...