Thread by @Rok_Novak

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RCTs and the "economics as plumbing" paradigm have significant problems and limitations. The easy to convey points (that the randomistas would likely acknowledge themselves) go along these lines:
(paper: sciencedirect.com/science/articl…)

The harder to convey points are of two types: 1. deep methodological disagreements (not merely about methods, but about the very nature of our science, the epistemology and ontology underpinning it), 2. political economy disagreements, including normative issues.

No. 1 is well illustrated if we contrast this years' Nobel with Ostrom's work. Whereas Ostrom treats social phenomena as embedded in complex social ecologies where the system level is often more than the sum of its parts, that awareness is absent in RCTs.
cambridge.org/core/journals/…

Btw, this is not a new paradigmatic clash. It is one that goes back to the first half of the 20th century. When the study of commerce and community was pried apart, and the positivist trend in economics created a chasm between it and other social sciences. routledge.com/Commerce-and-C…

And while Ostrom is known to the majority of the profession for her field work on common pool resources, there are profound methodological insights she had to offer that have largely gone disregarded by the "plumbers".
press.princeton.edu/books/paperbac…

Since it is a point that doesn't come easily to economists, let me repeat: this isn't just about what methods to use (the more the merrier is almost always true in that regard). It is a paradigmatic clash on philosophy of science. See e.g. Lewis for more onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.111…

No. 2 is hard for economists, because it cannot be separated from normative debates. What is the proper role of government, and what role should economists take (Plumbers? Engineers? Architects? Gardners? Teachers? Preachers? Or some bundle of all of these?)

The debate used to be a common one. Think of Buchanan's "What Should Economists Do?" (jstor.org/stable/1055931…) or Hayek's Nobel speech, where he challenged the profession on exactly the kind of let-the-data-speak pretense that has become the norm.
nobelprize.org/prizes/economi…

And we still get some echos of this position, say in @bill_easterly's Tyranny of Experts (amazon.com/Tyranny-Expert…) or Roger Koppl's Expert Failure (amazon.com/Failure-Cambri…).

McCloskey's piece (washingtontimes.com/news/2019/oct/…) was for a popular audience, sure. But really, only someone who knows both her Bourgeois Trilogy and her works on methodology (Rhetoric of Economics; Cult of Statistical Significance), can mentally insert the actual argument.

As it is, it comes across as angry and uncharitable hit piece. Which is unfortunate, because there *is* a serious argument to be made. There are opportunities for scholars to learn from each other and do better in our understanding of the conditions for human flourishing.

We don't need trench warfare between the different methodological camps, or people burning bridges between them, we need an exchange of ideas and a curiosity and willingness to learn. Sometimes we might just find that the opposing camp has some useful insight to share too.

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