ABSTRACT
At the beginning of his classic study of industrial statistics, Random Processes and the Growth of Firms (Steindl 1965), Joseph Steindl quoted Kalecki’s mordant observation that “Economics consists of theoretical laws which nobody has verified, and of empirical laws which nobody can explain.” Despite its seeming addiction to conventional economic wisdom from early parts of the century, there can be little doubt that the economics profession at the end of the twentieth century is more empirically informed than it was when Kalecki made his comment. Unfortunately much of its “realism” falls too readily into “abstracted empiricism” (Mills 1970, Chap. 3), which sacrifices logic and consistency in the process of specious methodological refinement, and gives results that cast little light on the “central problems” of our time (Kalecki 1971).
