B41 - Economic MethodologyReturn

In the globalised world of the past decade, the characteristic movement of the real economy in Europe has been in the lower amplitudes of the economic cycle and has been complicated by the low effectiveness of fiscal and monetary policy tools and instability on the financial markets, which, in relation to the real economy, display features of autonomy and virtuality. The exchange rates of the euro, rouble and Czech crown display exceptional volatility, while the yields from financial instruments are at a historic minimum. These phenomena are the result of the stagnation of the European economy, a high level of indebtedness and an inability to effectively solve escalating political problems, such as military conflicts, terrorism, mass migration, economic sanctions, etc.

N. D. Kondratiev was a Russian economist and statistician. Although he was interested in planning theory, he became most famous for his modern approach to economic cycles, primarily long waves. Unfortunately, both his ideas about dynamics in economics, planning and cycles and his work for the Institute for Conjuncture are still underappreciated.

Cournot was a French mathematician, philosopher and economist, said to be one of the most important predecessors of neoclassical economic theory. He belongs among the pioneers in econometrics and mathematical economics. He is also highlighted for creation of market prices, the demand function and the basis for marginalist firm theory. He was unacknowledged in his lifetime.

R. Cantillon was an irish merchant and banker whose birth, youth, financila activities and even death are secret. We know that he operated in France. Nowadays there has preserved the only his book, but this is often considered to be the first trully systematic economic treatise. Cantillon contributed to many economic topics and in many of them he was the first author.

It has been widely accepted that philosophers of science wrote a "swansong" for positivism during the second half of the 20th century. Milton Friedman and Paul Samuelson, major contributors in the field of economic methodology at the time, the argument goes, never reflected the demise. Therefore, positivist roots are still to be found in influential theoretical concepts developed by mainstream economists. Specifically, I present the hypothesis of rational expectations and the theory of efficient markets as two significant outcomes of a "high tide" of positivist thinking in economics. However, quite a large number of scholars currently share the view that the two concepts contributed in a non-negligible manner to the development leading to the financial crisis culminating in 2008 and 2009 and should be replaced by behavioural or other approaches. The article thus asks, in quite a novel way, if the crisis - seen by many as an empirical rejection of both the concepts - can also be seen as a milestone in the development of methodology of economics.

The authors of the article point out that economic theory has failed to yield a solid theoretical background in critical situations such as the current financial and economic crisis and the transformation of post-communist economies. Mainly the present crisis opens the question of the unsatisfactory status of economic science. While classical liberal or Keynesian concepts are failing, theorists cannot look to mathematical modelling for help. It seems that traditional concepts malfunction, and the financial market is particularly predisposed for this process. The application of mathematical models is overvalued. The article calls attention to the possible influence and adequacy of regulatory attitudes on a return to equilibrium. It seems that the part of ethics must be upgraded decidedly. The challenge for today's theoretical economists is to find a new paradigm of economic science for today's global era.

The article deals with Mill's views on methodology. The place taken by political economy in the general classification of knowledge is shown. This includes: natural distinction between physical and moral sciences (including non-reducibility of mental phenomena to physical phenomena) and definition of political economy as a separate science. Further, the concept of economic man as introduced by Mill is presented. Two methods, which Mill saw as appropriate for studying social phenomena - i. e. concrete deductive method and inverse deductive method - are examined. Finally, marginalist reinterpretation of Mill's methodology is suggested. This reinterpretation retains the major features of Mill's approach.