Background
BOLAND, Lawrence Arthur was born in 1939 in Peoria, Illinois, United States of America.
(Many consider Foundations of Economic Method to be Lawren...)
Many consider Foundations of Economic Method to be Lawrence Boland's best work. This updated edition is radically changed from the original and will be much appreciated by thinkers within economics. The book positions methodology vis-à-vis the current practice of economists and is all the better for it. Yet another book that not only deserves to be read by those within the field of economic methodology, but also by those involved in economics at all. Boland is back.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0415771145/?tag=2022091-20
(Many consider Foundations of Economic Method to be Lawren...)
Many consider Foundations of Economic Method to be Lawrence Boland's best work. This updated edition is radically changed from the original and will be much appreciated by thinkers within economics. The book positions methodology vis-a-vis the current practice of economists and is all the better for it. Yet another book that not only deserves to be read by those within the field of economic methodology, but also by those involved in economics at all. Boland is back.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/113888104X/?tag=2022091-20
BOLAND, Lawrence Arthur was born in 1939 in Peoria, Illinois, United States of America.
Bachelor of Science Bradley University, Peoria, Illinois, 1962. Master of Science, Doctor of Philosophy University Illinois, Urbana, Illinois, 1963, 1966.
Assistant Professor, University Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 1965-1966. Assistant Professor, Association Professor, Simon Fraser University, 1966-1970,1970-1978. Visiting Assistant Professor, Boston University, 1968.
Professor of Economics, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada, since 1978.
Editorial Board. Philosophy Social Science, since 1975, Canadian Journal of Economics, 1979-1982.
(Many consider Foundations of Economic Method to be Lawren...)
(Many consider Foundations of Economic Method to be Lawren...)
After switching from engineering studies to economics late in my undergraduate degree, and after completing Doctor of Philosophy studies exclusively devoted to mathematical economics, I decided that most mathematical models of economic theories were inherently empty since they never dealt with the actual process of decisionmaking that we are supposedly explaining. Very early it was clear to me that any realistic explanation of an individual’s behaviour must include assumptions concerning how the individual processes information such as that concerning his or her own utility or preferences as well as that concerning existing prices. This led immediately to the study of methodology and epistemology.
Unfortunately, when I decided to study methodology it was not highly regarded by the profession.
Until the late 1970s, editors of major economics journals were reluctant to publish anything concerning methodology. In the 1960s the low regard was quite understandable since little of the methodology literature seemed to have any direct effect on economic theory. My purpose has always been to show that methodology can matter.
All that is required is the recognition that every decision maker must have a methodology. In one sense, it may be easily claimed that, of course, everyone has a methodology. But on closer examination, that claim usually presumes that everyone has the same methodology (namely, inductive learning).
Such an examination eventually led to my 1982 book, The Foundations of Economic Method, which criticises the role of presumed induction in economic theory and shows that this presumption has
generated impossible avant-garde theoretical problems. More recently, in my Methodology for a New Microeconomics, I examine the methodological problems of recent attempts to focus microeconomics on the study of disequilibrium systems — again, I try to show how methodology matters.