THE PROBLEM OF VERIFICATION IN ECONOMICS

This chapter presents the problem of verification in economics. Verification in research and analysis may refer to many things, including the correctness of mathematical and logical arguments, the applicability of formulas and equations, the trustworthiness of reports, the authenticity of documents, the genuineness of artifacts or relics, the adequacy of reproductions, translations and paraphrases, the accuracy of historical and statistical accounts, the corroboration of reported events, the completeness in the enumeration of circumstances in a concrete situation, the reliability and exactness of observations, the reproducibility of experiments, or the explanatory or predictive value of generalizations. Empiricist is a word of praise to some, a word of abuse to others. This is because of the fact that there are many degrees of empiricism. Some economists regard themselves as empiricists merely because they oppose radical apriorism and stress the dependence of theory on experience; some because they are themselves chiefly concerned with the interpretation of data, with the testing of hypotheses, and with the estimates of factual relationships.