In conjunction with its tercentenary celebrations in 1968, Sveriges Riksbank (Bank of Sweden) instituted a new award, 'The Central Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel' on the basis of an economic commitment by the bank in perpetuity. The award is given by the...

This paper considers the role of theory in our understanding of economic phenomena. While theoretical findings are sometimes claimed to have direct, real world relevance, this is based on rhetoric rather than logic. Theory can and has been considered as analogy, metaphor or framing. These...

Milton Friedman is usually regarded as an instrumentalist on the basis of his infamous claim that economic theories are to be judged by their predictions and not by the realism of their assumptions. This interpretation sits oddly with Friedman's empirical work - e.g., Friedman and Schwartz''s...

There is presently considerable debate about the application and interpretation of realism in economics. Interest in this area of the philosophy and methodology of economics has intensified over the last twenty years, especially owing to the substantial contributions by Uskali Mauml;ki and Tony...

The volume under review consists of comments on critical realism by heterodox economists. This paper addresses a number of themes from the book, e.g., history and reflexivity, sometimes expanding on the authors' comments on critical realism, other times responding to them on behalf of critical...

We study a case that applies hermeneutics to social sciences, in particular to the Austrian school of economics. We argue that an inaccurate treatment of hermeneutics contributed to an epistemological downgrade of the Austrian school in the economic scientific community. We discuss how this...

This paper is based on an “interview” I did for publons on how I approach refereeing for academic/scholarly journals. The paper covers a broad range of issues across topics including: managing invitations; writing the review; and open reviews. The views are my own, based on a career spanning...

In the second edition of his methodological Essay, Lionel Robbins attributes a significant role to uncertainty, dynamics and the time element. Understanding the motives that led to these revisions may offer important clues to assess what happened to political economy ever since, and how far...

Pluralism is frequently supported by heterodox economists, but their rationale for it is not always transparent. It could be advocated for strategic reasons, as a response to the institutional power of orthodoxy, or for fundamental reasons, as a programme for how economics should best be done....

Historians of economic thought are paying greater attention to issues of social ontology (that is, to the assumptions that economists make about the nature of social reality). In this paper, we contribute to this burgeoning literature by exploring the hitherto neglected way in which James...