Lorraine Workshop on Measuring Consensus in Economics #LorConsEcon2019

Nancy, Lorraine, France. 22 November 2019.

How to measure the scientific consensus (or lack thereof) in economics?

Description

One study or one result is not enough to conclude if an effect or a causal relationship actually exists. Other fields like biology or management rely on meta-analyses to assess the scientific consensus on specific research questions, but economics does not have such a tradition. As a consequence, it is not always easy to assess where lies the scientific consensus (if there is any). This is the question this workshop is intended to explore: how can we measure the scientific consensus (or the lack thereof) among economists? Should we rely more on meta-analyses? Should we poll researchers? Should we reward researchers who publish critical surveys? Should we explore the literature with computational text analysis? And so on.

Polls are regularly conducted on political economy questions, for instance the IGM Forum. But what about more positive or methodological questions? What economists think of (for instance) the rational expectation hypothesis? How do they perceive the use of models within the discipline? And so on. Having quantitative answers to those questions can help economists have a better understanding of their own discipline, and also help to explain economics more clearly to the general public (as in some countries, for instance in France, the perception of economics by the general public is quite different from what economics really is).

The goal of this workshop is to explore this set of question, and also to establish contacts between economists interested by those questions in the hope of future collaborations and discussions.

Keynote speaker

TBA

Call for paper

Themes

I am taking working paper or project (as an extended abstract) on the following topics:

  • meta-analyses
  • epistemology
  • methodology of literature surveys
  • surveys on researchers and scientists
  • reproducibility
  • open science
  • transparency

If you think one of your work would fit with the workshop but isn’t on a subject listed above, do not hesitate to contact me.

If you have a working paper, please submit it. If you don’t have a working paper, an extend abstract will do it.

Deadlines

TBA

Schedule/timetable

TBA.

Venue

The workshop will be held at the Bureau of Economic Theories and Applications in Nancy, Lorraine, France.

Nancy is renowed for its place Stanislas, the bergamote candies and our own recipe of macarons. The Lorraine region has great wines, you probably already know its quiche, and we have cool hiking spots too!

Partners

  • Institute of New Economic Thinking (INET), Young Scholar Initiative (YSI)
  • Bureau of Economic Theories and Applications (BETA)

Julien Grandjean is supporting me in the organization of this workshop.