Models and Stories in Economics

Abstract

The paper is devoted to critical analysis of economic methodology movement equating models and metaphors, without making any difference between mathematic models and verbal descriptions (“stories”). The author characterizes some approaches to models’ methodological treatment in economics; describes models’ features permitting to obtain new knowledge and, finally, validates the lack of these features in most verbal descriptions of economic processes. The analysis shows that models and verbal stories have essentially different cognitive potential for economics’ development.