That would be a very interesting read. Public Choice Theory is an offshoot of economics that has headed back the other way, towards politics and normative purposes.

There does seem to be a disconnect between how economics is taught and the reality that most economic students will end up working for organisations that have normative purposes.

It is interesting to see the popularity of Philosophy, Politics and Economics degrees. Maybe there is still a place for disciplines like Economic History and Political Economy.

Indeed, I agree it is broader – I just think the comparison is a neat place to start to get a feeling around what has happened.

For example, prior to the decline of economic history departments was the decline of a lot of “normative” economics – in what way is that related, and what was that due to? Would be interesting in reading a history of economics book that focused on the way economics “questions” changed – as that should capture why specific elements faded and rose to prominence. Think it would give us insight into whether the questions we are asking are the right ones, or at least what purpose they are right for.

It could just be me, but I see economic history as much broader than just econometrics. Econometrics can be a part of economic history, but economic history also blends applied economics with statistics, history and politics. If you were studying economic history, you would be just as interested in political decisions and social changes in society as quantitative analysis.

The key issue I disagree with in the quote is equating “predictive power” in a narrow sense with scientific. The Duhem-Quine thesis tells us this can be a bit of a pain, especially when many of the auxiliary hypotheses are unobservable – an extremely important issue for macroeconomics in particular.

The economic history point is a really interesting one – I might set up some of the later Discussion Tuesdays (June/July) to be on that.

One question I have is, how much has economic history died vs how much has economic history transformed into econometrics.

Indeed, and I guess my comment was a push to recombine them. In most NZ universities that would actually mean resuscitating Economic History first, since next to none is now taught.

There is already a separate discipline called Economic History, although the separation of Economics and Economic History has been controversial.