ABSTRACT
There is a substantial case made by serious scholars that, despite a methodological rhetoric that often seems to imply and require sustained attempts to falsify economic theories, economists as a group do not take seriously this “responsibility”. Some scholars, such as Mark Blaug (1980), subscribe to this description of the behavior of economists, and bemoan it. Others, such as Donald McCloskey (1983), appear to accept the description but reject the appropriateness of a falsificationist attitude. Still others, such as E.Roy Weintraub (1988), seem to take issue with the description itself.1 This chapter attempts to shed light on this debate by focusing on the actual practice of empiricism in economics. Is it reasonable to characterize the typical objective of empirical work in economics as severe testing of theories (“falsification”) or simply “verification”, or something quite different?2
