Paradigms of economics and public deficit

Authors

  • Andrés Blanco UNIVERSIDAD DE LA REPÚBLICA ORIENTAL DEL URUGUAY

Keywords:

paradigms, public finances, economic theory

Abstract

The article has the objective of testing, with respect to economics, the Wittgenstein’s developments on languages, as well as the Kuhn and Lakatos conceptions of science as “paradigms” or “research programs”, in particular their self-referential and closure features of each paradigm or research program. The strategy of work consists in select some expressions like “cyclical” o “countercyclical fiscal policy”, or “public deficit” (among others), demonstrating that, in two opposite paradigms as the “neoclassical theory” and “postkeynesian theory”, the same expressions have different meanings and dimensions, reciprocally uncommunicated, because their origins in two different theoretical frameworks. In one sense, it confirms the Kuhn and Lakatos conceptions, but also that economics and the social sciences in general, have not reached the epistemological maturity, due to the coexistence of rival paradigms. Finally, the possibility of settling the divergences between the paradigms, in the same way of “traditional sciences”, also discussing the example of some terms of fiscal policy.

Author Biography

Andrés Blanco, UNIVERSIDAD DE LA REPÚBLICA ORIENTAL DEL URUGUAY

Instituto de Finanzas Pùblicas

Profesor Titular

 

Published

2020-06-18

Issue

Section

Original reflection article