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Ceteris Paribus Clauses and Causality in Economics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2022

Daniel M. Hausman
Daniel M. Hausman*
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin-Madison
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Extract

Explicit or implicit ceteris paribus clauses are pervasive in economics. People do not always buy more of x when the price of x decreases. The generalization holds only “other things being equal” or ceteris paribus. Not everybody wants more wealth, but economists have held that the generalization holds, ceteris paribus. When government imposes price controls, shortages do not always arise, but, ceteris paribus, they do. Ceteris paribus clauses are common in other sciences, but I shall confine my remarks to economics.

Many have found such ceteris paribus clauses problematic. For they are vague, and they seem to insulate theories from empirical criticism and correction. When the observed phenomena are not as the theory predicted, one can (or so it has been alleged) always claim that other things were not “equal”, that there was some “disturbance” or “interference” and thus that the ceteris paribus condition was not met.

Type
Part X. Laws in the Social Sciences
Information
PSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association , Volume 1988 , Issue 2: Volume Two: Symposia and Invited Papers 1988 , 1988 , pp. 308 - 316
Copyright
Copyright © 1989 by the Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

1

I would like to thank Harold Kincaid, James Woodward and members of the audience at the PSA meetings for some searching and helpful criticisms and suggestions.

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