I don’t normally do this, but I thought Tom Hickey’s comment on my last post was particularly salient. Quoting partially: The fact of the matter, however, is that social sciences are always normative to a degree, because universes of discourse are bounded by norms, and method is also… Because models are necessarily simplifications of what [...]
Archive for December 9th, 2009
From the Comments: “Critical Procedure”
Posted in Uncategorized on December 9, 2009 | 2 Comments »
Can Neoclassical Economics Accept Explicit Normative Priors?
Posted in Uncategorized on December 9, 2009 | 9 Comments »
Before yesterday, I didn’t really think so. However, Emmanuel Saez changed my outlook a bit. I attended a seminar he gave on a paper that he’s working on concerning optimal US tax and transfer policy. I liked the general thrust of his presentation; he was concerned with both the effects that income elasticities for taxation [...]
