实证经济学思想:演进、困境、进路

Thoughts of Positive Economics:Evolution,Dilemma and Approach

国际金融危机爆发后,西方学界对以实证经济学为代表的主流经济学进行了反思,特别是对经济理论的非现实性、预测能力低下等问题的批判涉及到了实证经济学方法论。该文回溯了实证经济学演进史,指出方法上对逻辑证明的科学要求同研究对象的无法观测和无法验证,这对矛盾构成了实证经济学的知识困境,在老凯恩斯那里,这一困境表现为经济齐一性的科学理想与归纳方法不完善的矛盾。为了摆脱这一困境,现代实证经济学选择了几种不同的进路：回避归纳法,或者适度承认归纳法的有效性。文章对这些理论思想进行了分析。

After international financial crisis, the mainstream economics, especially positive economic has been criticized by the academic circle in the West. The characters of alienation from reality and low capability of forecasting which is the focuses of critique actually concerns the methodological problems of positive economics. Sketching the evolution of positive economics, the article points out that there is a dilemma in positive economics, that is, the conflict between the scientific requirements of logical argumentation and the object of study which is unobservable and then cannot be tested and verified. In the masterpiece of J. N. Keynes, the dilemma appears to be the conflict between the scientific ideal of uniformity and the imperfection of deduction. In order to .solve this problem, modern positive economists have made some attempts, such as avoiding the problem concerned with the logical validity of deduction, and admitting in some appropriate part the validity of deduction