Economics and economic methodology in a core-periphery economic world

John B Davis

doi:10.1590/0101-35172019-3004

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper uses a core-periphery distinction to characterize contemporary economics, economic methodology, and also today’s world economy. First, it applies the distinction to the organization of contemporary economics through an examination of the problem of explaining economics’ relations to and boundaries with other disciplines. Second, it argues that economics’ core-periphery organization is replicated in a similar organization of the use and practice of contemporary economic methodology in economics. Third, it draws on the use of the core-periphery thinking in economics itself regarding the uneven development of the world economy to provide possible foundations for economics and economic methodology being organized in core-periphery terms. Fourth, the paper briefly discusses three potential countervailing forces operating on the development of contemporary economics that might work against its core-periphery organization.

Highlights

APPLYING THE CORE-PERIPHERY DISTINCTION TO ECONOMICS, ECONOMIC METHODOLOGY, AND THE ECONOMYThe core-periphery distinction is employed in the economics of trade and development, geography, network theory, the study of financial systems, and applied mathematics to distinguish a dense center of activity especially important to the performance of an entire system and a more dispersed area in the system strongly influenced by the system’s core and less influential in determining the system’s overall performance.1 This paper’s primary goal is to employ the core-periphery distinction to explain the organization of contemporary economics, and extend this to the use and practice of contemporary economic methodology in economics
The paper draws on core-periphery theory in development economics to make the case that the world economy possesses a core-periphery structures, in order to argue that the core-periphery nature of economics and economic methodology can be seen as a reflection of this wider system of social-economic organization
The paper’s first conclusion, is that economics’ boundaries can be explained in terms of its internal organization, where that involves a core-periphery structure that distinguishes an orthodox core of economics from a heterodox periphery of economics

Summary

INTRODUCTION

APPLYING THE CORE-PERIPHERY DISTINCTION TO ECONOMICS, ECONOMIC METHODOLOGY, AND THE ECONOMY. The strategy of the paper is to first justify applying the core-periphery distinction to contemporary economics, and move to a core-periphery characterization of the use and practice of contemporary economic methodology on the foundation this provides – before turning to the character of current market economies in the world today. I begin by discussing the methodological problem of how one can explain economics’ relations to other disciplines, and use the results of this discussion to argue that economics has a core-periphery internal structure. The section of the paper, compares two approaches to explaining conceptual boundaries among disciplines, rejects one approach, and uses the other to characterize economics’ structure as a discipline in core-periphery terms. Economics’ conceptual boundaries with other disciplines stem from its own internal organization, and the distinction between core and periphery differentiates among domains within the internal structure of economics that are respectively less related and more related to other disciplines

TWO APPROACHES TO EXPLAINING CONCEPTUAL BOUNDARIES AMONG DISCIPLINES

CONCLUDING SUMMARY