A Review of Kuhnian and Lakatosian “Explanations” in Economics



The third line of criticism focuses on the view that the adoption of Lakatosian
methodology does not adequately explain the advancement of economics. More
specifically, Hands (1984) argued that since economics lack “crucial experiments”, the
Lakatosian growth of economic knowledge process dos not fit well. Given this, he later
(1985) argues that a modified version of MSRP is needed. In the same paper, he also
argued against Blaug’s attempts in analysing a Keynesian MSRP and against Weintraub
for presenting a neo-Walrasian programme. More specifically, Hands believes that the
criterion of factual novelty was too rigid to be applied to economics (Hands, 1985, p.7). For
instance, the success of Keynesian economics was not due to its empirical content but on
other social factors. Many of the facts that Keynes predicted were already used in the
construction of the theory (Hands, 1985, p.9). The same view is supported by Caldwell
who thinks that some of the facts that Keynes had predicted were false (Caldwell, 1991,
p.101). In a subsequent paper (1990, p. 70), Hands restates his view that the
Lakatosian type of scientific progress to be too narrow to be fitted in economics. He also
re-emphasized the weakness of economics to predict novel facts, a criterion held by
Lakatos as an important one in appraising rival scientific programmes (1990, p. 78).12

Another line of criticism of Lakatosian ideas has to do with the empirical testing of
theories. It has been argued that economists were very successful in producing theoretical
but not empirical criticism of theories (de Marchi, 1991, pp.15-17). This means that non-
empirical criticism has proved to be much more effective than empirical criticism. Lakatos’
emphasis on predicting and confirming facts proved too narrow for the scope of criticism
in economics (see also Shearmur, 1991, p.42).

Finally, a number of authors have claimed that Lakatosian views have served as a
justification for dominant theories. Hands (1993, p.68), for instance, maintains that

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