Economics is an "inexact" science; or so Daniel Hausman argues in The Inexact and Separate Science of Economics (Google Books link). As it implies, this description conveys that economic laws have only a loose fit with observed economic behavior. Here are the loosely related interpretations that Hausman offers for this idea, drawing on the thinking of John Stuart Mill:
1. Inexact laws are approximate. They are true within some margin of error.
2. Inexact laws are probabilistic or statistical. Instead of stating how human beings always behave, economic laws state how they usually behave.
3. Inexact laws make counterfactual assertions about how things would be in the absence of interferences.
4. Inexact laws are qualified with vague ceteris paribus clauses. (128)
Economics has also been treated by economists as a separate science: a science capable of explaining virtually all the phenomena in a reasonably well-defined domain of social phenomena. Here is Hausman's interpretation of a separate science:
1. Economics is defined in terms of the causal factors with which it is concerned, not in terms of a domain.
2. Economics has a distinct domain, in which its causal factors predominate.
3. The "laws" of the predominating causal factors are already reasonably well-known.
4. Thus, economic theory, which employs these laws, provides a unified, complete, but inexact account of its domain. (90-91)
Erillisyyttä koskien MacKenzie et al.: Do Economists Make Markets?: On the Performativity of Economics olisi varmasti mielenkiintoista luettavaa.
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