On Tourism and Hospitality Management Research：在旅游和酒店管理研究.doc

Triangulation in Economic Research: Reorienting Economics into Social Science Dr Paul Downward Dr Andrew Mearman Loughborough University University of the West of England Leicestershire Coldharbour Lane LE11 3TU Bristol BS16 1QY Email p.downward@lboro.ac.uk Email Andrew.Mearman@uwe.ac.uk ‘…the modern (forced) separation of the discipline of economics from other social sciences must be recognized as quite misguided. Indeed, this separation merely makes it difficult for economics to advance in pace with other branches of social science….’ (Lawson 2003, p162) 1. Introduction Political Economy in general has long been critical of mainstream economics. Yet, of late, the literature has tended to express this critique not so much with respect to specific theoretical or empirical claims per se, though these are clearly important, but in terms of the methodological apparatus of economics. Amongst many contributions Hodgson (1988) argues that mainstream economics simply emphasises one method of analysis which expresses theoretical explanation in terms of the achievement of an agents objective under effectively full information. This is elaborated upon by highlighting positions of attained equilibrium. As such ‘economics forgot history’ (Hodgson, 2001). Lawson (1997, 2003) from a critical realist perspective has criticised the deductivism of the mainstream; whilst Dow (1990, 1996) its monist tradition, and Davidson (1996) it reliance on the ergodic axiom. In many respects each of the above critiques highlights economics in terms of either/or dualities within the domain of economics and compares the mainstream view of economics with respect to an alternative, specific view of economics, for example, described as a School of Thought (Mair and Miller, 1992). In contrast the work of Tony Lawson is rooted in a more abstract agenda. His book Economics and Reality (1997) provided a critique of economics as social theory, through its critical emphasis upon mainstream method.