The Speaking of Economics Web Site
"Although the predictive power of the science of economics is limited, although economists disagree, although the scientific quality of their work is less than optimal ... the science is not so strange if you see it as a conversation." So says Arjo Klamer. Are you from a different camp? Like "hard-nosed"? Or "lazy-dazy"? Speak to us. Klamer has personally invited many of you. (See "In conversation with" and "Exordium.")
Whether you are a student, academician, journalist, practicing economist, or interested outsider, this forum features chapters from Arjo Klamer's recent Speaking of Economics (Routledge, 2007) that will get you interested in a conversation about economics. We invite you to speak your mind. What's your take on, say, Klamer's claim that economics is "a bunch of conversations"?
Arjo Klamer is the author of a number of influential books including Conversations with Economists and The Consequences of Economic Rhetoric (see Books Section of Klamer's website). He claims that economics is as much about how people interact as it is about the models, the mathematics, the econometrics, the theories and the ideas that come from the enormous aggregate of economics literature. Knowing and understanding economics requires both bookwork and mingling with other economists.
Klamer examines fundamental disagreements over the nature and purpose of economics. How is it that a discipline that so permeates daily life is at once — depending on where you stand in its spheres — 'soft' and scientific, powerful and ignored, noble and disdained? Can we make a case that it is scientific, powerful, and noble? Or that it is non-scientific, not effective, and has no business receiving a Nobel Prize? Students, teachers, journalists, Klamer foe or ally, let us hear from you on these pages.