Economic Methodology

The book provides an historical introduction to the methodology of economics through the eyes of (political) economists. It starts with John Stuart Mill's seminal essay on the definition and method of political economy of 1836 and then shows how the actual practice of political economists changed to such an extent that economists not only changed their methods of inquiry, but also their self-perception as (political) economists.

From intellectuals and journalists operating to a large extent in the public sphere, they transformed into experts who developed their tools of research increasingly behind the scenes. No longer did they try to influence policy agendas via a public discourse to which they were party; rather they targeted policy makers directly and with instruments that showed them as independent and objective policy advisors; the tools of the trade changing all the while.

Harro Maas tracks this process of development through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, analyzing the growth of empirical, mathematical modelling, but also the emergence of the experiment in economics as well as the similarities and differences between (empirical) mathematical modelling and material experimentation.