Kevin D. Hoover - Böcker

Charles S. Peirce (1839-1914) is most famous today as a philosopher, the founder of the philosophical school of Pragmatism, and as a logician. In his own day, he was better known as a bench scientist, astronomer, and metrologist, renowned in the international scientific community for his measurements of gravity. Peirce was, in fact, one of history's great polymaths: mathematician, a founder of semiotics and one of the earliest experimental psychologists, as well as a contributor to a number of other disciplines, lexicography, and for decades a scientific contributor to The Nation. Perhaps the least understood of Peirce's many contributions are his forays into economics. In the 1870s, no one in the world had a better understanding of mathematical economics or its applications to real-world problems. Peirce's Science of Economics and Economics of Science is a careful examination of his engagement with economics. It takes an interdisciplinary approach. As history of economics, it reconstructs how Peirce came to possess a cutting-edge knowledge of mathematical economics at the dawn of the so-called "marginalist revolution," how he used that knowledge in concrete applications, and how he understood the nature of economics as a science. As a wider history of science, it shows how Peirce created the economics of science out of a whole cloth as part of resolving methodological problems that arose in his work of measuring gravity. The book explores applications of Peirce's ideas about economics to some long-standing problems in the philosophy of science and shows how these ideas have implications for real-world science.

Charles S. Peirce (1839-1914) is most famous today as a philosopher, the founder of the philosophical school of Pragmatism, and as a logician. In his own day, he was better known as a bench scientist, astronomer, and metrologist, renowned in the international scientific community for his measurements of gravity. Peirce was, in fact, one of history's great polymaths: mathematician, a founder of semiotics and one of the earliest experimental psychologists, as well as a contributor to a number of other disciplines, lexicography, and for decades a scientific contributor to The Nation. Perhaps the least understood of Peirce's many contributions are his forays into economics. In the 1870s, no one in the world had a better understanding of mathematical economics or its applications to real-world problems. Peirce's Science of Economics and Economics of Science is a careful examination of his engagement with economics. It takes an interdisciplinary approach. As history of economics, it reconstructs how Peirce came to possess a cutting-edge knowledge of mathematical economics at the dawn of the so-called "marginalist revolution," how he used that knowledge in concrete applications, and how he understood the nature of economics as a science. As a wider history of science, it shows how Peirce created the economics of science out of a whole cloth as part of resolving methodological problems that arose in his work of measuring gravity. The book explores applications of Peirce's ideas about economics to some long-standing problems in the philosophy of science and shows how these ideas have implications for real-world science.

First published in 2001, Causality in Macroeconomics addresses the long-standing problems of causality while taking macroeconomics seriously. The practical concerns of the macroeconomist and abstract concerns of the philosopher inform each other. Grounded in pragmatic realism, the book rejects the popular idea that macroeconomics requires microfoundations, and argues that the macroeconomy is a set of structures that are best analyzed causally. Ideas originally due to Herbert Simon and the Cowles Commission are refined and generalized to non-linear systems, particularly to the non-linear systems with cross-equation restrictions that are ubiquitous in modern macroeconomic models with rational expectations (with and without regime-switching). These ideas help to clarify philosophical as well as economic issues. The structural approach to causality is then used to evaluate more familiar approaches to causality due to Granger, LeRoy and Glymour, Spirtes, Scheines and Kelly, as well as vector autoregressions, the Lucas critique, and the exogeneity concepts of Engle, Hendry and Richard.

The Methodology of Empirical Macroeconomics stakes out a pragmatic middle-ground between traditional, prescriptive economic methodology and recent descriptive (sociological or rhetorical) methodology. The former is sometimes seen as arrogantly telling economists how to do their work and the latter as irrelevant to their practice. The lectures are built around a case study of a concrete example of macroeconomic analysis. They demonstrate that economic methodology and the philosophy of science offer insights that help to resolve the genuine concerns of macroeconomists. Some examples of questions addressed include: What is the relationship between theoretical models and empirical observations? What is the relevance of macroeconomics to policy? Should macroeconomics be viewed as a special case of microeconomics? What is the place of long-standing philosophical issues in macroeconomics, such as the scope and nature of economic laws, the role of idealizations, methodological individualism, and the problem of causality?

First published in 2001, Causality in Macroeconomics addresses the long-standing problems of causality while taking macroeconomics seriously. The practical concerns of the macroeconomist and abstract concerns of the philosopher inform each other. Grounded in pragmatic realism, the book rejects the popular idea that macroeconomics requires microfoundations, and argues that the macroeconomy is a set of structures that are best analyzed causally. Ideas originally due to Herbert Simon and the Cowles Commission are refined and generalized to non-linear systems, particularly to the non-linear systems with cross-equation restrictions that are ubiquitous in modern macroeconomic models with rational expectations (with and without regime-switching). These ideas help to clarify philosophical as well as economic issues. The structural approach to causality is then used to evaluate more familiar approaches to causality due to Granger, LeRoy and Glymour, Spirtes, Scheines and Kelly, as well as vector autoregressions, the Lucas critique, and the exogeneity concepts of Engle, Hendry and Richard.

This textbook offers a complete course in applied macroeconomics at the intermediate level that emphasizes the application of economic theory to real-world data and policy. Topics covered include national and international income, financial accounts, business cycles, financial markets, economic growth, labor markets, aggregate supply and demand, inflation, and monetary and fiscal policy. The text is unique in developing a detailed toolkit of elementary statistics and graphical techniques for economic data. A strength is its detailed treatment of national and international financial markets and the institutions of monetary and fiscal policy, which makes it especially helpful in understanding recent economic crises. The website for the text is found at http://www.appliedmacroeconomics.com.

The Methodology of Empirical Macroeconomics stakes out a pragmatic middle-ground between traditional, prescriptive economic methodology and recent descriptive (sociological or rhetorical) methodology. The former is sometimes seen as arrogantly telling economists how to do their work and the latter as irrelevant to their practice. The lectures are built around a case study of a concrete example of macroeconomic analysis. They demonstrate that economic methodology and the philosophy of science offer insights that help to resolve the genuine concerns of macroeconomists. Some examples of questions addressed include: What is the relationship between theoretical models and empirical observations? What is the relevance of macroeconomics to policy? Should macroeconomics be viewed as a special case of microeconomics? What is the place of long-standing philosophical issues in macroeconomics, such as the scope and nature of economic laws, the role of idealizations, methodological individualism, and the problem of causality?

The New Classical Macroeconomics gives an accessible, rigorous, critical account of the central doctrines of the new classical economics, without unnecessarily difficult mathematics. It focuses on four central issues: the foundation of monetary theory; monetary and fiscal policy; labour supply and business cycles; and the attack on econometric models. In addition, the relationship of the new classical economics to monetarism and the Austrian school, with both of which it is often confused, it explored.

Each chapter of this volume is written by respected econometricians in order to provide useful information and perspectives for those who wish to apply econometrics in macroeconomics. The chapters are all written with clear methodological perspectives, making the virtues and limitations of particular econometric approaches accessible to a readership familiar with applied macroeconomics. The real tensions in macroeconometrics are revealed by the critical comments from different econometricians, having an alternative perspective, which follow each chapter.

This textbook offers a complete course in applied macroeconomics at the intermediate level that emphasizes the application of economic theory to real-world data and policy. Topics covered include national and international income, financial accounts, business cycles, financial markets, economic growth, labor markets, aggregate supply and demand, inflation, and monetary and fiscal policy. The text is unique in developing a detailed toolkit of elementary statistics and graphical techniques for economic data. A strength is its detailed treatment of national and international financial markets and the institutions of monetary and fiscal policy, which makes it especially helpful in understanding recent economic crises. The website for the text is found at http://www.appliedmacroeconomics.com.

Over the past two decades the new classical macroeconomics has become the single most coherent school of macroeconomic thought. Always controversial, it has nonetheless captured centre-stage, and has become the standard by which competing schools of thought are judged. These volumes contain the most important and influential articles of the new classical school, as well as some important articles critical of new classical thinking. The volumes are arranged thematically, beginning with the rational expectations hypothesis and the application of general equilibrium to labour markets, and continuing with various new classical arguments for the ineffectiveness of government policy. The core of the volumes is Lucas's famous critique of econometric policy evaluation and responses to it in the areas of econometric technique, monetary theory and business-cycle theory. The final section covers the rapidly developing area of models of growth with increasing returns.

Monetarism and the Methodology of Economics is a collection of 14 original essays in honour of Thomas Mayer focusing on the themes of monetarism, the transmission mechanism for monetary policy, the political economy of monetary policy and the methodology of empirical economics.This volume addresses the many areas where Thomas Mayer has made a major contribution and brings together a distinguished group of contributors including King Banaian, Mark Blaug, Martin Bronfenbrenner, Richard C.K. Burdekin, Thomas F. Cargill, Milton Friedman, C.A.E. Goodhart, D. Wade Hands, Abraham Hirsch, Kevin D. Hoover, David Laidler, Thomas Mayer, James L. Pierce, Steven M. Sheffrin, Richard J. Sweeney, Thomas D. Willett, Wing Thye Woo. An autobiographical essay by Thomas Mayer and a short appreciation by Kevin Hoover and Steven Sheffrin are included in this volume, together with a bibliography of Mayer's economic writings.

This major three volume collection celebrates the legacy of Robert E. Lucas, Jr., winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science in 1994, founder of the New Classical School and one of the most influential macroeconomists of the late twentieth century. The Legacy of Robert Lucas, Jr. presents the eleven most influential articles on macroeconomics by Robert Lucas, Jr. together with articles by a wide variety of other key economists who extend, develop, criticize, or are otherwise significantly influenced by Lucas's seminal ideas.