| Ronald Coase's academic contribution to the methodology of economics has been paid greater attention gradually by the academic circles.From the perspective of the history of economic thought,adopting the various methods including literature research,historical context analysis,case study,investigation and interviews,induction and deduction,and so on,the dissertation is designed to understand the main features and the evolution process of Coase's methodology of economics,then to develop the positive views on it.The author focuses on the four main themes of Coase's methodology:the main compositon,the origins,the evolution in the process of debates and the relaitons with the philosophy of science.In the four appendices,the author discusses some background knowledge including Coase's educational background,mental structure,professional experience,the initial motive to study Marshall and the way of Knight influencing Coase,etc.The first part of the thesis consists of five chapters,which designed to summarize the system of Coase's methodology which is different from the mainstream economics by studying Coase's speech on different methodological issues at different times and his own research practice.It includes four main topics:?the main terms which represent the position of Coase' methodology:the real world and blackboard economics.Based on the background of Coase's knowledge and the writings of Coase,the article explains the origins,connotation and definition of the two main terms,the purpose of Coase to use them,and examines the consistency between Coase's methodological position and his own research practice.The article finds out that "the real world" terminology of Coase is distinct from "the real world" in classical philosophy.The real world of classical philosophy is the world of ideas,the ideal world,the world of ontology,and the real world used by Coase is the life world in the modem philosophical sense.The real world in Coase's works has the following empirical characteristics:the ordinary world of life,which exists enterprises,laws,contracts,government and other various system,people interact each other by various institutions and certaintly transaction costs are positive.By contract,the ideal world is built by economists,which is hypothetical world,imaginary world,a world of zero transaction cost."Blackboard Economics" is a term created by Coase in the 1960s,and was used to express a series of policy models which based on the principle of marginal cost pricing,showing that economists ignore what happens in the real world of when they analyze the problems of economic policy making.Thus,it results in the economists' failure.Then,Coase continued to expand the concept of blackboard economics to cover the economic analysis which have the perfect logic but hard to be applied in practice.At the same time,Coase proposed a comparative institutional analysis to replace the approach of blackboard economics.The paper also explores the realist standpoint in his basic assumptions in Coase's early pure technical analysis,and Coase's own views on Coase Theorem is regarded as the stepping stone to the real world,which shows that Coase does not have the problem of inconsistency between methodological and research practice.?The nature of the economics.The article combines the different definitions of the nature of economics in the history of economic thought and the understanding of the nature of economics in Coase's writings to illustrate Coase's views on the object of economic research,economics and adjacent disciplines,and the scientific properties of economics.The article argues that Coase's substantive definition of the economics is a study of the relationship structure of the various institutional forms that determine the production in the real world.In the institutional structure,enterprises,markets and the law(and government)constitute the iron triangle to support the normal operation of the economic system.The main factor determining the relationship between firm,market and law,and other systems is not just a comparison between market transaction costs and organizational costs,but also a comparison of organizational costs between organizations.From the economic definition,we can see Coase focus not on the research of the relationship between the purpose of man and the way in which resources are used,but on the various transactional relationships between people;not on the consumption of wealth,need and utility issues,but on wealth growth of production,supply and cost issues.The article also summarizes Coase's view of the scientific nature of economics.The economics,in the process of development to a hard science,should abandon the physics-jealosy tendencies in the mainstream economics,and should move closer and learn more from the biology;Economics to study the man who has flesh and blood of the body of life more like real man,rather than inanimate joy calculators;the man should be a social biological sense,have not only natural attributes,but also social attributes;Economics is a study of the economic system which is not assumed that the normal economic system works itsel,and tends to static optimal mechanical system,but the same as the biological system with open,evolutive,complex sub-system,even sub-subsystems are also very complex,interactive in the economic system.?The issues of theoretical research.The article discusses Coase's view of the status of economic theory,selection criteria,expression,basic assumptions and other methodological issues.One of the trends in mainstream economics is to constantly emphasize and highlight the importance of theoretical research,gradually ignore the empirical research and applied research,and even the tendency to equate economics with economic theory.The article argues that Coase has always warned the trend in the mainstream economics,he does not deny the importance of theoretical research,but insists theoretical research is only a tool and a bridge by which economists understand the real world,and it should never be the ultimate goal of economic research.The article argues that,facing the issue of theory choice,Coase refute the popular Friedman's positive methodology,based on Kuhn's historism philosophy of science.He points out that,the actual choices of the previous economists and the normative analysis of the issues,the standard of the value of economic theories can only be "understanding" rather than "predict",thus he does not agree with Friedman.On the way of expression of theory,Coase is opposed to the mathematicization of economics rather than mathematics applied to economics.He argues that mathematicization will lead economics practitioners to ignore the limitations of mathematical description of the real world,misleading economists to turn a blind eye to what can not be easily measured in the economic system,ignoring those factors that are difficult to deal with in mathematical form,that is the cost of statistical data.The mathematicalization of economics will mislead economists with mathematical talents to addict to the so-called "mathematical entertainment" and to pursue the fictional problem,so that economics will become a study divorced from the real world,and be the purely mathematical game.At the same time,the mathematicization of economics will lead to the misuse of mathematics by researchers without mathematical talents,to make it fake in order to meet the mainstream,to use the advanced mathematical model to dress empty ideas.More importantly,Coase believes that mathematical expression is not suitable for the current stage of economic development.In his view,although the application of mathematics to a high degree of formalization and refinement of economic theory,but only in economic research has revealed that the results of reasoning itself has a clear mathematical nature,it is suitable for the full use of mathematics to build theory.The current stage of development of economics has not yet fully understood the real factors that affect the performance of the economic system,and have not yet reached the stage of the need to use mathematics to deal with advanced issues.The article also explores the fundamental causes and operational means of Coase's realistic assumptions.The article argues that the realism of the assumption advocated by Coase is to ask the theory of the basis and prerequisites to reflect the real world,that is,the basis of the theory to be realistic.Because the reasoning process is only logic,it is the derivation of the causal mechanism of the hypothesis,if the necessary hypothesis is not true,the reasoning must come to the conclusion which is not true,and it is not conducive to understanding what happened in the real world,and difficult to get consistent with the actual situation of policy recommendations or economic decision-making.But the hypothesis of Coase's claim is conditional and does not require all assumptions to be true.The article also summarizes the characteristics and the way realistic assumptions perceived by Coase,and his approach to use the rule of thumb-the demand law and the competition law replacing the assumption of rational utility maximizing——axiomatic hypothesis in the mainstream economics.This paper summarizes the meaning,characteristics and methods,techniques and steps of the empirical research emphasized by Coase,which synthesizes his economic research practice,methodological speeches and letters,manuscripts and so on.Coase argues that empirical research is the prerequisite for economic theory,the basis of innovation and the basis of testing.But Coase's empirical study is not or is not just the use of modern measurement methods to analyze the data.In Coase's view,because economic facts are not only quantitative features,there are many important and even critical non-quantitative features;not only in the present,but also in the past.Therefore,empirical research not only includes quantitative empirical research,but also non-qualitative empirical research;not only has the empirical research focusing on the current field trips,but also the historical experience of the past.In the case of Coase himself,he focuses on a wide range of non-quantitative empirical studies,including field interviews,historical and business records,legal jurisprudence and contract practice analysis.From his main empirical research practice and his methodology of empirical research,summed up his experience of empirical research with common sense as the starting point,the case study as the main means,focusing on detailed research and comparative system research.The article also uses the informative raw materials and Coase's research text to reveal the process of his research on the British pig industry and Fisher-General case study,and summarizes the specific methods and steps of Coase's experience in quantitative empirical research and non-quantitative empirical research.The second part of the thesis includes three chapters,and discusses the evolution of Coase's methodology.Because of the important features of Coase's economic methodology,the important feature of the evolution of thought is the continuous development in the various debates.Therefore,this part is based on Coase's economic methodology debates,involving Mrs.Joan Robinson,Milton Friedman,Lionel Robbins,economist imperialists represented by Gary Becker,and George Stigler,etc.Coase argues with Mrs.Robinson on the issue of the standard of economic assumptions,and with Friedman on the economists to chooce the economic theories,and with Robbins on the nature of the economics,and so on.The article also reveals the reasons why Coase and Robbins' disagreement about the important theoretical divergence of the nature of the economics,by exploring Coase's published works and unpublished texts at different times.The third part of the paper explores the origins of Coase's methodology of economics,focusing on the influence from Adam Smith,Alfred Marshall,Arnold Plant and Frank Knight,whose ways of look at economics and economic issues inspire Coase's thinking.The fourth part of the paper explores the scientific philosophical basis of Coase.It argues that Coase may have been affected by falsificationism in the late 1940s,but since the late 1950s,he met Kuhn,he had begun to consciously keep consistency with the historicist path of philosophy of science.In some degree,the scientific philosophy of Popper's falsificationism and Kuhn's historicalism prompted Coase to eventually form his own economic method system.The dissertation in the appendix gives the more detailed account of Coase's education background,mental structure and professional experience which former three parts involved in.Moreover,a research on Coase's motivation to study Marshall's family and another research on Knight how to influence on Coase are added. |
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