The History of Economic Thought as a Living Laboratory

Abstract

We propose a novel and constructive way to conceptualize the history of economic thought and appreciate its value within economics more broadly. Drawing on the work of economists spanning nearly a century, we explore the idea of the history of economic thought as a living laboratory of theorizing. It is living in that it is a persistently relevant method of doing economic theory, as opposed to a separable field or even a dead branch of economics. It is a laboratory in that it provides a constrained space for examining, comparing, critiquing, combining, and developing theories. Following an initial explanation, we explore the roots of this conceptualization in the works of some 20th-century economists. We then illustrate it using the example of the development of neo-Wicksellian macroeconomics. We conclude with a discussion of the advantages and limitations of the living laboratory approach.

Keywords: history of economic thought, living laboratory, neo-Wicksellian macroeconomics JEL Codes: B20