Despite being a key term in institutional economics, the term 'institution' seems to be used in various different ways. To what extent is this problematic, given that a shared understanding of key terms among scholars is a necessary condition for scientific progress? We review prominent...

What determines the realisticness of a model? It is argued that to come up with an account of model realisticness that can answer this question, one has to make strong philosophical commitments to an account of representation, an account of model-world comparisons as well as the ontology of...

This paper provides an introduction to a unifying heterodox approach to the micro-macro link in economics. We emphasize the analytical problems that may arise from popular misunderstandings about the relationship of individual and aggregate level and thereby illustrate why a thorough...

Agent-based simulations have become increasingly prominent in various disciplines. This trend is to be appreciated, but it comes with challenges: while there are more and more standards for design, verification, validation, and presentation of the models, the various meta-theoretical strategies...

From the two premises that (1) economies are complex systems and (2) the accumulation of knowledge about reality is desirable, I derive the conclusion that pluralism with regard to economic research programs is a more viable position to hold than monism. To substantiate this claim I discuss an...

This paper is motivated by the observation that (1) socio economic analysis uses significantly less formalisms than mainstream economics, and (2) that there exist numerous situations in which socio economics could benefit from a more formal analysis. This is particularly the case if institutions...

Institutionalist economists have always been criticizing the neoclassical way of studying the economy, especially because of its obsession to a very strict and flawed formalism. This formalism receives critique also from advocates of agent-based computational economic (ACE) models. The criticism...

This article uses the functional decomposition approach to modeling Mäki (2009b) to discuss the importance of methodological considerations before choosing a modeling framework in applied research. It considers the case of agent-based models and dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models to...

This paper provides a taxonomy and evaluation of five common arguments against pluralism in economics: (1) the claim that economics is already pluralist, (2) the argument that if there was the need for greater plurality, it would emerge on its own, (3) assertion that pluralism means "anything...