Mainstream_economics

Mainstream economics is the term used to distinguish certain approaches and schools of thought in economics from heterodox approaches and schools such as feminist economics and Marxian economics. Mainstream economists do not, in general, identify themselves as members of a particular school; they may, however, be associated with approaches within a field such as the rational-expectations approach to macroeconomics.

The term came into common use in the late 20th century. It appears in the influential textbook by Samuelson and Nordhaus,Paul A. Samuelson and William D Nordhaus (2001), 17th ed.,Economics on the inside back cover in the "Family Tree of Economics," which depicts arrows into it from J.M. Keynes (1936) and neoclassical economics (1860-1910). An earlier and narrower term first appearing in Samuelson\'s textbook (1955), is neoclassical synthesis (of neoclassical economics and Keynesian macroeconomics). Olivier Jean Blanchard (1987), "neoclassical synthesis," The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics, v. 3, pp. 634-36. Mainstream economics includes theories of market and government failure and private and public goods. These developments suggest a range of views on the desirability or otherwise of government intervention.

Mainstream economics may employ axioms or postulates in stating a theory. Testing the theoretical and empirical implications of those postulates is a standard method of mainstream economics.

Some fields may be described as being partly within mainstream economics, partly within heterodox economics. Some of them are Austrian economics,A Companion to the History of Economic Thought (2003). Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 0631225730 p. 452 institutional economics, neuroeconomics and non-linear complexity theory.David Colander, Richard P. F. Holt, and Barkley J. Rosser, Jr. (2004), "The Changing Face of Mainstream Economics," Review of Political Economy, 16(4), pp.485-499. (abstract) They may use neoclassical economics as a point of departure. Yet, recent research suggests that "neoclassical economics no longer dominates a mainstream economics."John B. Davis (2006), "The Turn in Economics: Neoclassical Dominance to Mainstream Pluralism?", Journal of Institutional Economics, 2(1), pp. 1-20. (PDF article link)

A countervailing trend is the expansion of mainstream methods to such seemingly distant fields as crimeDavid D. Friedman (2002), "Crime," The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics,[1] the family, law, politics, and religion.Laurence R. Iannaccone (1998), "Introduction to the Economics of Religion," Journal of Economic Literature, 36(3), pp. 1465-1496. [[2] The latter phenomenon is sometimes referred to as economic imperialism. Edward Lazear (2000), "Economic Imperialism". The Quarterly Journal of Economics. , 115(1), pp. 99-146.[3]

References

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