“Measurement” or Finding Things Out in Economics

Abstract

Most books designed to introduce a science to beginning students describe not only what the scientists know but also how they have come to know it. They let the students look in on the scientists as they go about advancing knowledge by observing the phenomena that form their subject matter. The biologists' books tell about cells, but also about looking through microscopes. The physicists tell about the gravitational formula, but also about throwing balls off the Leaning Tower of Pisa. In the social and behavioral sciences, the anthropologists talk about their field trips to the Trobriand Islands and the rat psychologists tell about their mazes. By contrast, when we teach economics, we tell the students nothing about economists' methods of finding things out. The authors of the Joint Council on Economic Education's A Framework for Teaching the Basic Concepts did put in a section called Measurement Concepts and Methods. But it turned out to be about tables, charts, graphs, means, medians, modes, indexes, and distributions. It is no accident that the authors of the Framework were unable or unwill-