The Role of Expectations in Economics as a Social Science

Bibliographic Data

ID9725283
AuthorsLudwig M Lachmann (corresponding author)
Year1943
Volume10
Issue37
Pages12
Publication date1943-02-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueEconomica (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0013-0427 • E-ISSN: 1468-0335
PublisherJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/2549651
OpenAlexW2313884476
LanguageEN
Citations received18

IN modern theory the introd-uction of expectations has opened new vistas to the economist and, at the same time, set him a new problem. It has made him realise that economic action concerned with the future, so far from being strictly determined by a set of objective data , is often decided upon in a penumbra of doubt and uncertainty, vague hopes and inarticulate fears, in which ultimate decision may well depend on mental alertness, ability to read the signs of a changing world, and readiness to face the unknown. But it has also compelled him to reflect on the causal explanation of expectations, to ask himself wlhy they are what they are. This problem bristles with difficulties. Given this fact and the natural proclivity of every science to become more limited in scope as it grows more conscious of its premisses, it was perhaps inevitable that economists confronted with this problem should have attempted to dispose of it by relegating expectations to the category of data alongside with wants, resources, and the technical facts of production. This line was in fact taken by Lord Keynes,' Dr. Morgenstern,2 Professor Myrdal,3 and Dr. RosensteinRodan.4 But it is readily seen that expectations must feel ill at ease in this company. What entitles us to treat wants and resources as data and disinterest ourselves in their causal derivation is the simple fact that qua economists we have nothing to say about them. Why the geographical distribution of mineral resources is what it is, why the cinema-going public of the 1930's preferred moving pictures directed by Rene Clair to moving pictures directed by Ernst Lubitsch, are in themselves interesting questions, but the economist has no answer to them. Expectations, on the other hand, are on a somewhat different plane as they are, while wants and resources are not, largely the result of the experience of economic processes. It is therefore

Action (physics) · Economics · Epistemology · Natural (archaeology) · Nothing · Positive economics · Scope (computer science) · Set (abstract data type) · Simple (philosophy) · Computer Science · Economic Theory and Institutions · Philosophy

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