Economic methodology


Economic methodology is the study of methods, especially the scientific method, in relation to economics, including principles underlying economic reasoning. In contemporary English, 'methodology' may reference theoretical or systematic aspects of a method. Philosophy and economics also takes up methodology at the intersection of the two subjects.

Scope

General methodological issues include similarities and contrasts to the natural sciences and to other social sciences and, in particular, to:
Economic methodology has gone from periodic reflections of economists on method to a distinct research field in economics since the 1970s. In one direction, it has expanded to the boundaries of philosophy, including the relation of economics to the philosophy of science and the theory of knowledge In another direction of philosophy and economics, additional subjects are treated including decision theory and ethics.