This paper discusses the epistemic import of highly abstract and simplified theoretical models using Thomas Schelling's checkerboard model as an example. We argue that the epistemic contribution of theoretical models can be better understood in the context of a cluster of models relevant to the...

In Economics Rules, Dani Rodrik (2015) argues that what makes economics powerful despite the limitations of each and every model is its diversity of models. Rodrik suggests that the diversity of models in economics improves its explanatory capacities, but he does not fully explain how. I offer a...

There is a striking contrast between the significance of Harold Hotelling’s contribution to industrial economics and the fact that his location model was invalid, unrealistic and non-robust. It is difficult to make sense of the explanatory value of Hotelling’s model based on philosophical...

A review essay on Avner Greif, Institutions and the Path to the Modern Economy : Lessons from Medieval Trade, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2006, xx+503.

Economists have long been criticized for their use of highly idealized models. In Economics rules: Why economics works, when it fails, and how to tell the difference Dani Rodrik responds to this criticism by offering an account of models that emphasizes the diversity of models in economics....

This paper examines game theoretic models of coordination conventions. Firstly, the paper shows that static models of coordination cannot explain the emergence of coordination conventions. The best interpretation of these models is that they study the conditions under which coordination is...

This note is mainly based on a short interview with Thomas C. Schelling (TCS), who shared the Nobel Prize with Robert J. Aumann in 2005. The interview took place on 06.03.2001 at University of Maryland, College Park, USA. It consists of two parts. The first part is about his interpretation of...

Rothschild (2001) argues that the invisible hand refers to blind individuals and presume privileged knowledge on the part of the social scientist. For this reason, she takes it that the invisible hand is, in fact, an un-Smithian concept and that Smith was making an ironical joke. In this brief...

Rothschild (2001) argues that the invisible hand refers to blind individuals and presume privileged knowledge on the part of the social scientist. For this reason, she takes it that the invisible hand is, in fact, an un− Smithian concept and that Smith was making an ironical joke. In this...