Economic Theory

A economic theory is a scientific theory formulated according to two compatible objectives between them:

to describe the reality of the economy (aspect known as positive or description);
to draw from the proposals for these rules to support a better operation of the economy (aspect known as Normative , political proposals).

Fields

An economic theory can relate to very many fields. For example there exists the economy of work, the saving in company, the social economy, the public economy, the international economy, the environmental economy, the economy of drug, etc

It is also possible to build theories as regards economic Intelligence.

Various economic theories

The economic theories were very numerous, and are included today in an epistemological logic of selection: they cumulate between them, and the least explanatory are forsaken. The idea according to which the economic theories are often opposite between them concerns more of the normative field than the positive field of the economic theories. Indeed, the normative shutter of the economic theories pleasing to proposals, and these are the proposals which make debate (and generate frequent oppositions). The positive field of the economic theory is him subjected to the debate scientists, running in sciences.

The researchers of other disciplines in general reproach the economists for being the “scientific” discipline which publishes while checking less (source: ). The development of the experimental economy mitigates this criticism partly, without solving the fact completely that the in vitro can reflect only imperfectly the in vivo . The economy, even very mathematized, largely remains, like other social sciences, based on histories or photographs of situation resulting from evolutions passed, whereas the future never sticks entirely to the past. But it is not certain 1. that the results of the economic positive theories are necessarily false 2. that the economic scene systematically seeks to predict the future. Its objective is rather a kind of anticipation from day to day, reactualized as soon as the need is felt some.

In addition, except exception, the majority of the currents of thought estimate that the economy is related to the question Politique, by the means of the normative field. Thus, of many political debates, as the recurring controversy on the weight which the public authorities in the economy must or not take, and on the respective effectiveness of the markets and the apparatus of State in this field (concepts of political economy, Théorie of the public choice, etc), are provided in arguments by the economic theory. In oneself, the theory itself does not develop an opinion, but the fact that the economists, as human beings, have some, can make tend to an amalgam between the recommendations of the normative economy and the political standpoint of certain economists (like Joseph Stiglitz or Fredriech von Hayek).

Finally, the normative economy does nothing but propose for the political field, but does not say which proposals must be preferred with others. The arbitration is political, noneconomic.

See too

Quotations

the economic theory does not provide any unit made up of the conclusions immediately usable to lay down the policies. It is about a method rather than of doctrines, of a series of intellectual tools which help their holders to draw the correct conclusions . John Maynard Keynes

Internal bonds

External bond

economic theories: French Documentation inventories the economic characteristics of 150 theories there.

Simple: Economy

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