ECONOMIC SCIENCE

That sounds like an oxymoron, doesn't it? If a youngster came to me asking what an oxymoron is, I would quote those words as an example.

A young Harvard economist does not agree with me. Many people have disagreed with me on many things over the years, but this is the first time a Harvard economist disagreed with me. I am honoured. There is an old saying in Tamil to the effect that if someone had to wrap you on the head with his knuckle, let it be one wearing a golden ring. Social station matters a lot in this world and so it is with me and economists.

The said Harvard economist is Raj Chetty. No doubt overcome by Physics envy, and unable to contain it any longer, he recently asserted that Economics is a Science. You can read his article here. I am proud of young Raj Chetty for a number of reasons even though I don't know him and he certainly hasn't even heard of me. He teaches at Harvard, is of Indian origin, and his name suggests  origins in my corner of India. The one blot in his CV is that he is an economist. But nobody is perfect; somebody has to be an economist. No doubt Mr Chetty's Physics Envy was stoked by the presence at Harvard of Raman Sundrum, the theoretical Physicist, which would be ironic considering that Mr. Sundrum himself was considering leaving Physics for Finance which is an offshoot of Mr.Chetty's domain (he was saved in the nick of time by Lisa Crandall, later to be his collaborator).

In his defence of the dismal science, Chetty claims that inasmuch as economists make hypotheses and empirically test them out, his domain is a science. Quickly he proceeds to highlight the difficulties in such empirical testing of economic theories just as in Medical and Public Health domains.  Robert Schiller and Gregory Mankiw  are on Chetty's side and they both are heavy weights indeed - the first is this year' Nobel winner and the latter the most widely quoted economist. The latter was also reportedly advanced a million dollars for a text book before a single word was written. Paul Krugman, the economist-gadfly, sort of agreed with Chetty, saying that may be all economics is science but not all economists are scientists. I don't know what it means, but I suspect Krugman's tongue was not in its normal place.

What is the word from one who is unlikely ever to win a Nobel, unlikely to ever write a book let alone receive a million dollar advance, does not seek out windmills a la Krugman; i.e, me?

I do not think economics is a science and will not be until study of human behaviour becomes an exact science since economics concerns itself mainly with human behaviour. My reasoning is as follows:

 Two and two is always be four. Positron-electron collision always results in photons (not quite always, but the collision products under given conditions are always the same). No ceteris paribus about it. Ceteris is never paribus. In Tamil we say that an aunt sporting a moustache is an uncle which is quite graphic, if you overlook the appalling anatomical ignorance.  By the way, Tamilian aunts sport much moustache but are not uncles. But that is a line of enquiry for a different post.

Physics does have some issues in its farthest boundaries which boundaries are being constantly pushed. So does Mathematics (Riemann conjecture, for example). But a vast majority of both disciplines rest on firm and unshaking foundations. The foundations may be shaken, as Physics' was a hundred years ago. When it did, a new, coherent, and consistent whole took the place of old Classical Physics. There are some kinks to be ironed out (reconciling the physics of the very small and the very large, for example), no doubt, and some of the best brains are working on it such as the aforementioned Mr. Sundrum.

Above all Physics and Mathematics, such as they are, are sufficient for our day to day lives.
Can we say that about economics?