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From:
[log in to unmask] (Ross B. Emmett)
Date:
Fri Mar 31 17:18:55 2006
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----------------- HES POSTING ----------------- 
 
[Posted on behalf of Bob Goldfard. -- RBE] 
 
In response to my "revised Schulz assertion" Roy Weintraub asked: 
 
> "Just what might you mean by progress when you use it in in this 
> sentence?"  
 
Good question. I have not read Morgan/Morrison, nor am I sure I 
have a good answer for Weintraub, but for the sake of provoking more 
discussion, here goes: 
 
I think of "progress" in a "modelling tradition/approach" as the  
ability of that approach to widen the range of "interesting/relevant"  
phenomena it is able to provide "within modelling framework"  
explanations for.   
 
While I am not a historian of thought, I will nonetheless offer an  
example just to (again) try to help provoke discussion. In my earlier  
life as a labor economist, I thought a lot about the well-documented  
existence of large wage differentials "for the same job" within a  
geographical labor market. As a "neoclassical approach to labor  
economics sympathizer," I would have viewed it as important  
progress for that modelling approach if the "neoclassical view"  
could produce a ("reasonably convincing in the context of that  
framework") explanation for the apparent continuing existence of  
those same-job-in-the-same-geographical-market wage  
differentials. This would widen the range of interesting/relevant  
phenomena the framework was providing explanations for....   
 
(NOTE: I used so many quotation marks in the above paragraphs in  
response to Weintraub's criticism that I had been "quotation-mark  
deficient.")   
 
Bob Goldfarb 
 
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