Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7fkt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T03:13:17.174Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

On the Limits of Economic Prediction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2024

Robert L. Heilbroner
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the ‘Save PDF’ action button.

The uses of economics are many, as are also the methodologies by which its various purposes can be defended or elucidated. In this paper I shall confine my attention, however, to but one of its many aims—the predictive intent that constitutes a distinguishing characteristic of so much economic work. Lest I be accused of claiming that prediction is an integral part of all economics, let me explicitly point out that the discipline has taxonomic, structural, purely formal, normative, and still other aspects, none of which involves prediction, and all of which have their useful roles to play. Nonetheless, I do not think that most economists would disagree with my contention that a predictive purpose lies at the heart of much of economic science today, in particular when that science is used on behalf of policy.

Type
Research Article
Information
Diogenes , Volume 18 , Issue 70 , June 1970 , pp. 27 - 40
Copyright
Copyright © 1970 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie / International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP)

Footnotes

*

The author is Professor of Economics at the Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research. He wishes to thank Adolph Lowe and Fritz Machlup for their criticism and assistance.

References

Friedman, Milton, Ingation, Causes and Consequences, N. Y. 1963.Google Scholar
Friedman, Milton, Essays in Positive Economics, Chicago 1953.Google Scholar
Heilbroner, R.L., “Do Machines Make History? “, Technology and Culture, Vol. 8, No. 3, July 1967.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keynes, John Neville, Scope and Method of Political Economy, London 1890.Google Scholar
Koopmans, Tjalling, Three Essays on the State of Economic Science, New York 1957.Google Scholar
Kuhn, Thomas S., The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Chicago 1962.Google Scholar
Leon, Paolo, Structural Change and Growth in Capitalism, Baltimore 1967.Google Scholar
Lowe, Adolph, On Economic Knowledge, New York 1965.Google Scholar
Lowe, Adolph, “Towards a Science of Political Economics" and “Economic Means and Social Ends: A Rejoinder” in R. L. Heilbroner, (ed.) Economic Means and Social Ends, Englewood Cliffs 1969.Google Scholar
Machlup, Fritz, “Operational Concepts and Mental Constructs in Model and Theory Formation,” Giornale degli Economisti e Annali di Economia, Sept-Oct. 1960.Google Scholar
Nagel, Ernest, The Structure of Science, New York 1961.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Robbins, Lionel, An Essay on the Nature and Significance of Economic Science, London 1935.Google Scholar