Rejoinder to Methodology…?! Why? Some methodological aspects of the controversy between mainstream economics and institutionalism by Peter Galbács

Abstract

(…) mainstream economists know the standard problems with economics, and they are working to change them. Who does not want economics to be empirically grounded? Who does not want economics to be relevant? Who does not recognize that formalism sometimes runs amok? The debate is how to change economics, not whether it has problems. (Colander 2005, p. 338) This question, and the rejoinder itself, were inspired by the article of Péter Galbács, in which he claims that the reason mainstream and heterodox economics 2 cannot converge their perspectives is the methodology we employ. But do the distant methodological standpoints preclude convergence? The answer to these questions depends, for me, on a clarification of the following areas in this long -going, active, but still unresolved dispute: 1. the way we define, treat and use the methodology in our reasoning, 2. the way we justify the choice of assumptions serving as the methodological restraint, 3. the way we understand and operationalize rationality.Let us start with the common field that both mainstream and heterodox economists explore. We jointly look for rules that guide the behaviour of agents (i.e. individuals, households, industries, regions, countries, etc.), regarding the reasons, the way and the outcome of the usage of scarce resources.1 Poznań University of Economics and Business, Faculty of International Business and Economics, Department of International Management, al. Niepodległości 10, Poland, beata.stepien@ue.poznan.pl. 2 Mainstream is defined usually as neoclassical economics (with Keynesian and neo-Keynesian approach), while heterodox is eg. institutional, neo -Marxian, and post -Keynesian economics. The behavioural economics, stemming from the heterodox stream, slowly becomes the mainstream now. Mainstream economics (but mostly neoclassical) is also identified with orthodoxy, mathematization and a formal, deductive approach (see eg. Lawson, 2006).