False Prophets of Economics Imperialism: The Limits of Mathematical Market Models

Jacket Blurb: 'This book studies the methodological revolution that has resulted in economists' mathematical market models being exported across the social sciences. The ensuing process of economics imperialism has struck fear into subject specialists worried that their disciplinary knowledge will subsequently count for less. Yet even though mathematical market models facilitate important abstract thought experiments, they are no substitute for carefully contextualized empirical investigations of real social phenomena. The two exist on completely different ontological planes, producing very different types of explanation.

In this deeply researched and wide-ranging intellectual history, Matthew Watson surveys the evolution of modern economics and its modelling methodology. With its origins in Jevons and Robbins and its culmination in Samuelson, Arrow and Debreu, he charts the escape from reality that has allowed economists' hypothetical models to speak to increasingly self-referential mathematical truths. These are shown to perform badly as social truths related to the world of directly lived experiences.

The book is a formidable analysis of the epistemic limitations of modern-day economics and marks a significant counter to its methodology's encroachment across the wider social sciences.'

Endorsements:

'The most thorough and persuasive account that exists of the origins of the cognitive authority of modern economics - and the sometimes rather tenuous claims on which that authority rests. A brilliant achievement that could really only have been written by Matthew Watson but which we can all learn from.' - Professor Colin Hay, Sciences Po, Paris

'False Prophets of Economics Imperialism is a tour de force! It challenges the economics orthodoxy with sharp interrogations, multidisciplinary insights and careful and robust analysis of the history of the dismal science and its dominance of our academic and policy worlds today. This authoritative book should be read by anyone interested in how mathematical modelling came to rule the roost in economic thinking and policymaking, and why this should not be the case.' - Professor Shirin Rai, SOAS, London

'In this brilliant book, Matthew Watson reveals how economics transformed itself into the imperialist discipline that it has become today. He charts how, as economists became increasingly preoccupied with mathematical rigour, the field changed from being a study of the real economy to 'a science of choice' ... This study demonstrates the ironic path through which economics had to make itself increasingly uneconomic in order to become the discipline that sought to treat every other field through the lens of the market.' - Professor Jacqueline Best, University of Ottawa, Ontario.

False Prophets of Economics Imperialism was included in the Alternative Summer Reading ListLink opens in a new window for 2024, as compiled by the Diversifying and Decolonising Economics group.