ABSTRACT
In the 1970s I attended a conference where the organizers unknowingly assigned a methodology paper to a session that also was assigned a paper by a highly regarded mainstream economic theorist. After both papers were presented to the standing-room-only audience, virtually every question and comment was directed to the author of the methodology paper. The highly regarded mainstream economic theorist was visibly upset. And it was no wonder. Methodology as a subject of discussion can always be more interesting than dull, boring papers about the latest fads in mathematics-based model building techniques. The highly regarded mainstream economic theorist complained that methodology was mere titillation lacking substance. Until the 1980s, mainstream economists treated methodology as prudes treat sex. During the 1980s, methodology was allowed out of the closet. Methodology articles could be found occasionally in many leading journals. But, perhaps because of this exposure, methodology has lost its titillating appeal. Judging by recent complaints, the official line that captures the mainstream economist’s attitude to methodology is ‘no methodology please, we’re economists’. In the 1990s, methodologists are again complaining about not being openly appreciated by mainstream economists. According to the methodologists, they have important ideas that, if listened to, the mainstream economists would find useful in their everyday activities. But what are these useful ideas? Examining the many recent methodology articles published in the three or four journals devoted to economic methodology, I have found it difficult to find any methodological prescriptions or proscriptions-useful or otherwise. If mainstream economists are rejecting the study of methodology, it cannot be because methodologists are making outrageous prescriptions or proscriptions. Maybe it is simply that methodologists have nothing useful to say to mainstream non-methodologists. Maybe methodology is considered to be intellectual pornography and thus its widespread exposure in the 1980s has shown how dull and boring it can be, particularly when it is thought to be mere rhetoric, as some critics have recently claimed. Nevertheless, if methodology is ever to be useful, it will have to be seen to be useful by mainstream economists.
