domingo, 8 de febrero de 2009

¿Es la Economía una Ciencia?

Este es un tema interesante, en particular para los estudiantes de economía. Les comparto una nota de un blog que se llama The Learning Economist y que se hace esta pregunta, abordándola con un ejemplo de la película sobre Nash "A Beautiful Mind".

Los últimos dos párrafos en sus conclusiones son particularmente interesantes para poder entender los alcances de la economía. Que la disfruten.

However, unlike natural sciences, economics lacks the ability to make precise predictions with accuracy due to the problems of:
Impossible to conduct controlled experiments - Unlike physical and natural scientists who can actually hold other factors constant (in a lab setting) while changing a particular variable, economists deal with a constantly changing environment and complex interactions between individuals, groups and instituitions, etc, resulting in a need to make simplifying assumptions that will frequently not hold true (e.g. assuming "other things remain constant")
Human behaviour is unpredictable -although people behave in broadly similar ways under similar conditions (e.g. when price falls, quantity demanded tends to increase), it is impossible to predict this behaviour with any accuracy. For example, factors such as consumer and business confidence are almost impossible to predict with any degree of accuracy.

1 comentario:

Anónimo dijo...

amén a eso