Suchergebnisse

"Central banks and other policymaking institutions use causal hypotheses to justify macroeconomic policy decisions to the public and public institutions. These hypotheses say that changes in one macroeconomic aggregate (e.g. aggregate demand) cause changes in other macroeconomic aggregates (e.g. in inflation). An important (perhaps the most important) goal of macroeconomists is to provide conclusive evidence in support of these hypotheses. If they cannot provide any conclusive evidence, then policymaking institutions will be unable to use causal hypotheses to justify policy decisions, and then the scientific objectivity of macroeconomic policy analysis will be questionable. The book analyzes the accounts of causality that have been or can be proposed to capture the type of causality that underlies macroeconomic policy analysis, the empirical methods of causal inference that contemporary macroeconomists have at their disposal, and the conceptions of scientific objectivity that traditionally play a role in economics. The book argues that contemporary macroeconomists cannot provide any conclusive evidence in support of causal hypotheses, and that macroeconomic policy analysis doesn't qualify as scientifically objective in any of the traditional meanings. The book also considers a number of steps that might have to be taken in order for macroeconomic policy analysis to become more objective. The book addresses philosophers of science and economics as well as (macro-) economists, econometricians and statisticians who are interested in causality and macro-econometric methods of causal inference and their wider philosophical and social context"--

"The German sociologist Max Weber (1864-1920) is without question one of the founders of modern social science. In his methodological writings, notably his essay "The 'Objectivity' of Knowledge in Science and Policy" (1904), Weber sought reflexively to establish a trans-culturally valid basis for the historical and cultural sciences. Over the past century, however, his work has given rise to divergent interpretations and practical applications within different disciplinary and cultural contexts. In Max Weber's 'Objectivity' Reconsidered, Laurence H. McFalls and a distinguished group of contributors explore the fragmented reception of Weber's work and the legacies of his methodological writings for contemporary social science, offering their appraisals of Weber's successes and failures in laying the groundwork for an 'objective' social science. They develop a 'Weberian' theory of his reception and evaluate the possibility of an 'objectively' valid Weberian social science today. This essential volume not only contributes to the resurgence of interest in Weber's oeuvre but goes beyond the exegetic and polemical debates of the burgeoning 'Weberological' literature in offering a coherent theoretical explanation for the proliferation of interpretations that Weber's writings continue to elicit."--