The Macroeconomist as Scientist and Engineer
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4029583 |
|---|---|
| Authors | N Gregory Mankiw (Robert M. Beren Professor of Economics, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts., corresponding author) |
| Year | 2006 |
| Volume | 20 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 29-46 |
| Publication date | 2006-08-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Journal of Economic Perspectives (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0895-3309 • E-ISSN: 1944-7965 |
| Publisher | American Economic Association (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1257/jep.20.4.29 |
| OpenAlex | W3121234475 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 48 |
| References cited | 33 |
The subfield of macroeconomics was born, not as a science, but more as a type of engineering. The problem that gave birth to our field was the Great Depression. God put macroeconomists on earth not to propose and test elegant theories but to solve practical problems. This essay offers a brief history of macroeconomics, together with an evaluation of what we have learned. My premise is that the field has evolved through the efforts of two types of macroeconomists-those who understand the field as a type of engineering and those who would like it to be more of a science. While the early macroeconomists were engineers trying to solve practical problems, the macroeconomists of the past several decades have been more interested in developing analytic tools and establishing theoretical principles. These tools and principles, however, have been slow to find their way into applications. As the field of macroeconomics has evolved, one recurrent theme has been the interaction-sometimes productive and sometimes not- between the scientists and the engineers. John Maynard Keynes (1931) famously opined, "If economists could manage to get themselves thought of as humble, competent people on a level with dentists, that would be splendid." As we look ahead, "humble" and "competent" remain ideals toward which macroeconomists can aspire
Engineering ethics · Epistemology · Great Depression · Political science · Premise · Science and engineering · Sociology · Computer Science · Economic Theory and Policy · Engineering · Law · Market Dynamics and Volatility · Mathematics · Monetary Policy and Economic Impact · Philosophy
Ensaios em história do pensamento econômico
Por um pensamento econômico heterodoxo dominante
Reading the right signals and reading the signals right
What Do We Teach in Macroeconomics? Evidence of a Theoretical Discrepancy
Rational expectations in a changing world
Keynesian Economics
Is something really wrong with macroeconomics
Enseñanzas de la Escuela de Salamanca en economía
The Cacophony within Law and Macroeconomics
The Transformation of Economic Analysis at the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System During the 1960s
The Economist as Scientist, Engineer, or Plumber
Macroeconomics under pressure
Artificial intelligence in the field of economics
Academic Macroeconomics and Monetary Policy
Macroeconomists as Revolutionary Schoolmates
The Economic Architecture of the Two De Kocks
Political science as architecture
The Neutrality Illusion
What were they thinking? The Federal Reserve in the run-up to the 2008 financial crisis
New Public Management as a Response to the Crisis of the 1970s
If the Financial System Is Complex, How Can We Regulate It
Concordian Economics
Renouveler la science économique néo-classique? Prendre l’historicité au sérieux
Is the New Monetary Consensus Still Alive? A Critical Economic and Philosophical Appraisal
The Arc of Neoliberalism
Sur les modalités du développement de la science économique
Superfluous women and the invisible economists of Langham Place
Are we all Keynesians
Equation and Adequation
The real purpose of the program
Money as meta-rule
The Epistemic Division of Labor Revisited
UK Economic Policy and the Global Financial Crisis
Consensus, Dissensus, and Economic Ideas
The Return of Keynesianism in Australia
Modeling the CNB's Monetary Policy Interest Rate by Artificial Neural Networks
As Implicações Monetárias Do Bndes
Are economists overconfident? Ideology and uncertainty in expert opinion
The Credibility Revolution in Empirical Economics
The 2008 financial crisis and neoclassical economics
Os dois métodos e o núcleo duro da teoria econômica
The History of Macroeconometric Modeling
A crise financeira global e depois
Assalto ao Estado e ao mercado, neoliberalismo e teoria econômica
No End to the Consensus in Macroeconomic Theory? A Methodological Inquiry
Predicting Major Economic Events with Accuracy
The discipline of economics
The Flexible Unity of Economics
The theory of unemployment reconsidered
Economics
A Monetary History of the United States, 1867-1960
Optimal Taxation of Capital Income in General Equilibrium with Infinite Lives
Liquidity Preference and the Theory of Interest and Money
Mr. Keynes and the "Classics"; A Suggested Interpretation
Small Menu Costs and Large Business Cycles
The Penn World Table (Mark 5)
The Science of Monetary Policy
Time to Build and Aggregate Fluctuations
Econometric policy evaluation
The design of tax structure
Theory of the Consumption Function
The Role of Monetary Policy
The Economic Architecture of the Two De Kocks
Sur les modalités du développement de la science économique
Real Business Cycles
"Rational" Expectations, the Optimal Monetary Instrument, and the Optimal Money Supply Rule
Long-Term Contracts, Rational Expectations, and the Optimal Money Supply Rule
Money-Wage Dynamics and Labor-Market Equilibrium
Rules Rather than Discretion
Aggregate Dynamics and Staggered Contracts
Increasing Returns and Long-Run Growth
The Welfare Cost of Capital Income Taxation
Some Quantitative Aspects of the Economics Journal Literature
A Monetary History of the United States, 1867-1960
| Unique citing works | 48 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 2,53 |
| Citation span | 2007 - 2026 (20) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 44 |