1. Introduction: the module; key concepts in methodology
Research Methods I
Introduction: the module; key concepts in methodology

2. The Module 11 lectures, 10 seminars End of module exam: 2 hours (50%)
Applied project (2500 words) (25%)
Dissertation proposal (25%)
Methodology/philosophy of science
Research design and data collection
Data analysis

3. Why study Methodology?
“…sciences have been created and revolutionised by those who have not stopped to analyse their own method of enquiry” J.N.Keynes (1890) The Scope and Method of Political Economy, quoted from Hausman (1982: 72)
Think about what you are doing!!

4. What is Methodology?
The study of methods and of philosophy (usually epistemology) underlying those methods (my definition)
Commonly now only means “what has been done”
Prescriptive vs. descriptive
Problem of nocturnal vs. diurnal philosophy
Most methodology has had prescriptive elements  “science”

5. What is “Science”? Very controversial: no one definition
Can define it in terms of: outcomes, progress; processes, methods
Outcomes: explanations; predictions; changes in society (e.g. U; revolution); laws (usually: generalities of form “if X then Y”); theories; models; necessity

6. What is “Science”?
Progress: verification (positivism); falsification (Popper); novel facts (Lakatos); puzzle-solving and consensus (Kuhn); social goals (as above)
Processes: systematic; social; peer review; critical; objectivity; “scientific language”; routine and repetition (Shipman); “scientific method”

7. What is “Science”?
Methods: formulation and testing of hypotheses; abstraction; ceteris paribus; experiment
Economists want to mimic natural science (particularly physics) (cf. Mirowski, 1989)
Induction (a posteriori method): past experience  generalities
Problem of induction: world is changing; can observe 100 white swans, but next one might be black

8. Deduction Move from assumptions to conclusions
E.g.: syllogism (the form of deduction)
A1: Peter was in London at 9pm
A2: the murder was committed at 9pm in Bristol
A3: people can be in only one place at one time
Conclusion: Peter did not commit the murder
Assumptions can be “covering laws”
Then  deductive-nomological model

9. Deduction E.g.: D-N model Beware hidden assumptions
A1: Peter is a cat (particular case)
A2: all cats have whiskers (covering law)
Conclusion: Peter has whiskers
Beware hidden assumptions
Beware silly or unjustifiable assumptions

10. John Stuart Mill
J.S.Mill ( ): one of the 19th century’s most influential thinkers
Liberalism
Logic
One of the first texts explicitly on economic methodology (1844)

11. The Millian Methodology
Economics is concerned with wealth
Economics is a science
Economics would like to be like physics but no experimentum crucis
Deduction not induction (economics = a priori)
Empirically-supported assumptions
Abstraction necessary
Build up models
Get to tendency statements: laws “if X then Y under E”/Ceteris Paribus; add details
Verify by observation

12. J.N.Keynes (father of J.M.K) (1890)
Social science more complex than natural science
Economics is positive not ethical
Purpose of economics: discover facts and truths
Need deduction and induction; and claims economics uses both (cf. Nocturnal-diurnal distinction)
Trying to bridge gap in Methodenstreit and attack on/by Historicists
Deduction needs to consider the conditions necessary for them to hold
Hypothetico-Deductive model

13. Hypothetico-Deductive model
hypothesis
Revised hypothesis
deduction
induction
proposition
Empirical testing
From Dow, S. (2002: 82)

14. Lionel Robbins (1932)
Looking to delineate a specific approach to economics
Economics as scarcity plus alternative uses
Looking for generalisations
Deduction required from Axioms
Notes problem of hidden assumptions
Precision essential
Highly positivist approach

15. Conclusions In this lecture we have examined:
The need to study methodology
The notion of science
Inductive and deductive logic
The visions for and methodologies of economics of Mill, J.N.Keynes and Robbins
The module explores all these themes further