Notes on Revisiting Klappholz and Agassi’s “Methodological Prescriptions in Economics”

Abstract

I reconsider the paper ‘Methodological Prescriptions in Economics’, Economica, February 1959, by Kurt Klappholz and Joseph Agassi. I criticise the thesis that “there is only one generally applicable methodological rule, and that is the exhortation to be critical […].” I compare the methodology of physics with that of economics, and discuss whether typical economic ‘laws’ are testable hypotheses. I consider whether an approach to economic policy based on welfare economics is biassed. In conclusion, I sketch an approach to economic methodology and suggest some rules of method that may be useful to the working economist.