Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-wq2xx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-19T22:07:53.469Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Underdetermination in Economics. The Duhem-Quine Thesis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 December 2008

K. R. Sawyer ,
Clive Beed  and
H. Sankey
K. R. Sawyer
Affiliation:
University of Melbourne
Clive Beed
Affiliation:
University of Melbourne (Retired)
H. Sankey
Affiliation:
University of Melbourne
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

This paper considers the relevance of the Duhem-Quine thesis in economics. In the introductory discussion which follows, the meaning of the thesis and a brief history of its development are detailed. The purpose of the paper is to discuss the effects of the thesis in four specific and diverse theories in economics, and to illustrate the dependence of testing the theories on a set of auxiliary hypotheses. A general taxonomy of auxiliary hypotheses is provided to demonstrate the confounding of auxiliary hypotheses with the testing of economic theory.

Type
Essays
Information
Economics & Philosophy , Volume 13 , Issue 1 , April 1997 , pp. 1 - 23
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1997

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Barro, R. J. 1978. ‘Unanticipated money, output, and the price level in the United States’. Journal of Political Economy, 86:549–80CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bera, A. K. and Jarque, C. M., 1982. ‘Model specification tests: a simultaneous approach’. Journal of Econometrics, 20:59–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Box, G. E. P. 1953. ‘Non-normality and tests on variances’. Biometrika, 40:318–35CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brock, W. A. 1986. ‘Distinguishing random and deterministic systems’ Journal of Economic Theory, 40:168–95CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chamberlain, G. and Rothschild, M.. 1983. ‘Arbitrage, factor structure and mean-variance analysis on large asset markets’. Econometrica, 51:1281–304CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cross, R. 1982. ‘The Duhem-Quine thesis, Lakatos and the appraisal of theories in macroeconomics’. Economic Journal, 92:320–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cross, R. 1984. ‘Monetarism and Duhem's thesis’ In Economics in Disarray. Wiles, P. and Routh, G. (eds.). pp. 78–99. Basil BlackwellGoogle Scholar
Desai, M. 1984. ‘Wages, prices and unemployment a quarter century after the Phillips curve’. In Econometrics and Quantitative Economics. Hendry, D. F. and Wallis, K. F. (eds.). pp. 253–73. Basil BlackwellGoogle Scholar
DeWald, W. G., Thursby, J. and Anderson, R.. 1986. ‘Replication in empirical economics: the journal of money, credit and banking project’. American Economic Review, 76:587–603Google Scholar
Duhem, P. 1906. La Theorie Physique, Son Object, Sa Structure. Paris, 2nd revised ed. 1914, reprinted by Librairie Vrin, Paris, 1981. The version used here is The Aim and Structure of Physical Theory. 1954. Trans. P. Wiener. Princeton University PressGoogle Scholar
Efron, B. and Thisted, R.. 1976. ‘Estimating the number of unseen species: how many words did Shakespeare know?’ Biometrika, 63:435–47Google Scholar
Engle, R and Granger, C.. 1987. ‘Co-integration and error correction: representation and testing’. Econometrica, 55:251–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ericsson, N. 1986. ‘Post-simulation analysis of Monte-Carlo experiments: interpreting Pesaran's (1974) study of non-nested hypothesis test statistics’. Review of Economic Studies, 53:691–707CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fisher, R. A. 1935. ‘The logic of inductive inference’. Journal of the Royal Statistical Society, 98:39–82CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Friedman, M. and Schwartz, A.. 1963. ‘Money and business cycles’. Review of Economics and Statistics, 45:S32–78CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Friedman, M. and Schwartz, A.. 1982. Monetary Trends in the United States and the United Kingdom: Their Relation to Income, Prices and Interest Rates, 1867–1975. University of Chicago PressCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grünbaum, A. 1960. ‘The Duhemian argument’. Philosophy of Science, 27:75–87CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haavelmo, T. 1944. ‘The probability approach in econometrics’. Econometrica, 12 Supp: 1–115CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harding, S. G. (ed.) 1976. Can Theories Be Refuted? ReidelCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hausman, D. 1984. ‘Are general equilibrium theories explanatory?’ In The Philosophy of Economics: An Anthology. Hausman, D.. (ed.). pp. 344–59. Cambridge University PressGoogle Scholar
Hausman, D. 1989. ‘Economic methodology in a nutshell’. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 3:115–27CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hempel, C. G. 1965. Aspects of Scientific Explanation. Free PressGoogle Scholar
Hendry, D. and Ericsson, N.. 1991. ‘An econometric appraisal of UK money demand’. In Monetary Trends in the United States and the United Kingdom by Milton Friedman and Anna Schwartz. American Economic Review, 81:8–38Google Scholar
Holt, C. 1970. ‘Job search, Phillips' wage relation and union influence: theory and evidence’. In Microfoundations of Employment and Inflation Theory, Phelps, E.et al, (eds.). pp. 52–123. NortonGoogle Scholar
Horowitz, J. and Neumann, G.. 1987. ‘Semiparametric estimation of employment duration models’. Econometric Reviews, 6:5–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Koenker, R. 1982. ‘Robust methods in econometrics’. Econometric Reviews, 1:213–55Google Scholar
Lakatos, I. 1978. The Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes. Cambridge University PressCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Laudan, L. 1965. ‘Grünbaum on the Duhemian argument’ Philosophy of Science, 32: 295–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leamer, E. E. 1978. Specification Searches: Ad Hoc Inference with Non-Experimental Data. WileyGoogle Scholar
Maddala, G. S. 1977. Econometrics. McGraw HillGoogle Scholar
Mill, J. S. 1936. ‘On the definition and method of political economy’. In The Philosophy of Economics: An Anthology. Hausman, D. S. (ed.). pp. 52–69. Cambridge University PressGoogle Scholar
Mongin, P. 1988. ‘Problèmes de Duhem en théorie de l'utilité espérée’. Fundamenta Scientiae, 9:299–327Google Scholar
Mortensen, D. T. 1986. ‘Job search and labor market analysis’. In Handbook of Labor Economics. Vol. 2. Ashenfelter, O. and Layard, R. (eds.). pp. 849–919. North-HollandGoogle Scholar
Nevile, J. 1979. ‘How voluntary is unemployment? Two views of the Phillips curve’. Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, 2:110–19CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Neyman, J and Pearson, E. S.. 1928. ‘On the use and interpretation of certain test criteria for purposes of statistical inference’. Biometrika, 20a, Part1:175–240; Part2:263–94Google Scholar
Popper, K. 1959. The Logic of Scientific Discovery. HutchinsonGoogle Scholar
Quine, W. O. 1953. ‘Two dogmas of empiricism’. In From a Logical Point of View. Harvard University Press. First published in The Philosophical Review: 60Google Scholar
Roll, R. and Ross, S.. 1980. ‘An empirical investigation of the arbitrage pricing theory’. Journal of Finance, 35:1073–103CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ross, S. 1976. ‘The arbitrage theory of capital asset pricing’. Journal of Economic Theory, 13:341–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rush, M. and Waldo, D.. 1988. ‘On the policy ineffectiveness proposition and a Keynesian alternative’. Economic Journal, 98:498–503CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sawyer, K. R. 1989. ‘Non-parametric estimation and testing of econometric models of duration: an application to the Australian Longitudinal Survey’. Australian Journal of Statistics, 31A:143–64CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sawyer, K. R. and Alauddin, M.. 1989. ‘A microeconometric search for a Phillips curve using industry wage data’. University of Melbourne Department of Economics. Working Paper 170Google Scholar
Sims, C. A. 1972. ‘Money, income and causality’. American Economic Review, 62:540–52Google Scholar
Sims, C. A. 1980. ‘Macroeconomics and reality’. Econometrica, 48:1–47CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stock, J. and Watson, M.. 1988. ‘Variable trends in economic time series’. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 2:147–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thursby, J. G. 1981. ‘A test strategy for discriminating between autocorrelation and misspecification in regression analysis’. Review of Economics and Statistics, 63:117–23CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tobin, J. 1972. ‘Inflation and unemployment’. American Economic Review, 62:1–18Google Scholar
Trzincka, C. 1986. ‘On the number of factors in the arbitrage pricing model’. Journal of Finance, 51:347–68CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tsurumi, H and Tsurumi, Y.. 1983. ‘US–Japan automobile trade: a Bayesian test of a product life cycle’. Journal of Econometrics, 23:193–210CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tukey, J. W. 1977. Exploratory Data Analysis. Addison-WesleyGoogle Scholar
Ullah, A. (ed.). 1989. Semiparametric and Nonparametric Econometrics. Studies in Empirical Economics. Physica; SpringerCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wulwick, N. J. 1987. ‘The Phillips curve: which? Where? To do what? How?’ Southern Economic Journal, 53:834–57CrossRefGoogle Scholar