ABSTRACT
The chapter takes a look at the history of scientific realism in economics from David Ricardo to the measurement-without-theory debate and works toward a characterization of the type of scientific realism that is relevant in macroeconomic policy analysis today. The chapter defends this type of realism against its main rival in economics, instrumentalism, and against two arguments that anti-realists have advanced against scientific realism, and that seem to have applications in macroeconomics: against the argument from pessimistic meta-induction and the argument from skepticism about truth. But the chapter also argues that in macroeconomic causal modeling, scientific realism is problematic: that macroeconomists will have to make progress in the program of empirical microfoundations to be able to convince themselves of the (approximate) truth of their causal models.
