The DOI matches its Crossref record; 1 of the 1 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Credible worlds: the status of theoretical models in economics
Abstract
Using as examples Akerlof's 'market for ''lemons''' and Schelling's 'checkerboard' model of racial segregation, this paper asks how economists' abstract theoretical models can explain features of the real world. It argues that such models are not abstractions from, or simplifications of, the real world. They describe counterfactual worlds which the modeller has constructed. The gap between model world and real world can be filled only by inductive inference, and we can have more confidence in such inferences, the more credible the model is as an account of what could have been true.
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Citations
Cites
The Market for "Lemons": Quality Uncertainty and the Market Mechanism
Akerlof, G. A. (1970) · The Quarterly Journal of Economics · doi:10.2307/1879431 · Cited by 23,016
Cited by
Frigg, R. (2010) · Synthese · doi:10.1007/s11229-009-9505-0 · Cited by 292
MISSing the World. Models as Isolations and Credible Surrogate Systems
Mäki, U. (2009) · Erkenntnis · doi:10.1007/s10670-008-9135-9 · Cited by 275
External representations and scientific understanding
Kuorikoski, J., & Ylikoski, P. (2015) · Synthese · doi:10.1007/s11229-014-0591-2 · Cited by 71
Environmentally significant behavior in the home
Stern, P. C. (2008) · The Cambridge Handbook of Psychology and Economic Behaviour · doi:10.1017/cbo9780511490118.015 · Cited by 50
Metadata
- Authors
- Sugden, R.
- Venue
- Journal of Economic Methodology
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2000-01
- Volume
- 7
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 1-31
- ISSN
- 1350-178X (ISSN-L)
- 1469-9427
- OpenAlex
- W1985651932
- Cited by
- 509
- References
- 1
- FWCI
- 21.97
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
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- Sugden, R. (2000). Credible worlds: the status of theoretical models in economics. Journal of Economic Methodology. https://doi.org/10.1080/135017800362220
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Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.
