STOREP CONFERENCES, STOREP 2018 - Whatever Has Happened to Political Economy?

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In what direction is economics heading?
Sam de Muijnck

Last modified: 2018-06-20

Abstract


In the aftermath of the recent financial crisis the status of economics has come under attack. A central critique is that economics is dogmatic in its adherence to its orthodox insights. The literature on current developments in economics, however, argues that mainstream economics has moved beyond the previous orthodoxy. In order to show empirically which view is correct, a computational text analysis of PhD dissertations, published between 2010 and 2017 at five top graduate schools, is performed. The text analysis shows that a large majority of the dissertations explicitly engage with orthodox economics, while about a quarter does so with nonorthodox mainstream economics. The findings thus support the view that orthodox economics is still dominant, although it coexists with some nonorthodox mainstream approaches. There is very little change over time in the ratios of dissertations which mention any of the approaches. This runs counter to the idea that the dominance of the current orthodoxy is fading.


Keywords


Quantitative history of economic thought, recent developments, mainstream economics

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