Question

Information: Economics is a science. Economists employ the scientific method to try to find answers to questions that interest them. However, unlike many sciences, it is hard or impossible to make experiments in economics. In physics, if one wants to know how gravity affects an object, one could conduct an experiment where an object is dropped and the time for object to reach the ground is measured. If wind interferes, or if the object is significantly slowed by air itself, then the experiment could be moved to a vacuum chamber, eliminating any other confounding factors, so that it is precisely the effect of mass and gravity that is measured. In economics this is not possible. What if one wanted to understand the effects of raising tax rates? Can an experiment be run where half the country has high tax rates and half has low tax rates? This would never be approved. Even if an experiment like this was approved, there would be no way to eliminate confounding factors. Perhaps right when taxes were increased, the oil prices happened to drop, giving an unexpected boon to the economy. If people responded by spending more, then one would not know whether this is because of the higher tax rates, or because of the lower oil prices, or both.

Question: With this background in mind, please consider the following question. Is economics truly a science if many experiments cannot be run? Why or why not? How could economists overcome this difficulty to still test their hypotheses and prove their theories?

please give an example and explain in detail.

Answer 1

Is economics truly a science if many experiments cannot be run? Why or why not? How could economists overcome this difficulty to still test their hypotheses and prove their theories?

Ans: No Economics is not a science and everyone recognize its a social science and its differe from science like Physics because science is a a medium of thinking which emphasizes the basic hypothesis and then doing controlled experiments to understand the each hypothesis is right or wrong. but in the case of economics it can not be possible to controlled experiments those things in lab but economics using historical or cross section data and evidence to Lure out, what might merely suggest a result.

The fundamental difference between Physics and economics Physics deals with physical universe which is controlled by unchangeable laws which is far away of human behaviours. but economics in contrast is a social science whose laws are controlled by human behaviour which is individual and society.

Some of the reason Economics is not a science and the imp points are given below

1) lack of testable hypotheses

2) lack of consensus

3) inherent political overtones

An Economist believes that present or current theories or thing is that unable to decribes or estimates real world pheonomena thats why economist will develop an alternative explanation which is called as hypothesis. However Economist can not conceive the real or true experiments but economists believes on historical observation and advanced statstical and econometrics model and techniques . Thats the only way to overome the difficulty to test the hypothesis and prove their real world problem and theories .

Example:

A school teacher reports that all the student in his school score an average of 8 out of 10 in final exams. To test this “hypothesis,” economist record marks of say 40 sample students from the school student populationwhich is 400 and calculate the mean of that student sample. calculate and compare the sample mean to population mean and attempt to confirm the hypothesis.