It's a field which is mostly interested in models and anyone can agree that a model is consistant and implies surprising things even if they think the hypotheses it makes don't faithfully represent reality.
It's endlessly fascinating to me how some people will happily disparage economics while having very little idea of what it's actually about.
And please do me the favour of not assuming I "have very little idea of what it's actually about". It's contrary to the site guidelines (and it's very annoying).
It doesn't really change anything to their inherent value that you build them from the hypotheses up or from the conclusions down. It holds the same that this set of interactions lead to this behaviour.
Sometimes going down can be equally interesting: "What would a system where tariff improves the overall well being of a country inhabitants look like?". Contrast the model requirements with empirical data and you have an interesting paper.
The non-mainstrean economists (aka heterodox, aka cranks) are usually more obviously pursuing an agenda, but they definitely usually don't have better empirical evidence.
> concensus in Economics
That's what I was talking about. This "consensus" is completely made-up and propped up by, among others, the Sveriges Riksbank. To the point that there are people like you who feel they should defend them against the evil "authoritarian Socialist", because of course, as we all know, that's all there is besides Neoliberalism. I sincerly hope you consider broadening your horizons, maybe start by Thomas Piketty's work: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Piketty
I made no such claim. I don't take issue with that list: the US by far leads in number of high‐profile economic researchers, high publication output, large number of employed economists.
Just as Mathematics is still Mathematics in the rest of the world, the broad perspective on Economics is not meaningfully different in the rest of the world. Even if it originated in the anglo-sphere, it's global. That's the point I made.
> This "consensus" is completely made-up and propped up by, among others, the Sveriges Riksbank.
Leading Economists globally find consensus on all manner of policy issues. Many academic papers model the effects of tariffs on prices, welfare, and the consensus is that tariffs generally harm consumers. Surveys conducted on Economists show strong consensus there.
> because of course, as we all know, that's all there is besides Neoliberalism
It's not a long list. Even Social Democracy darlings of Europe are effectively just Liberal with a bit more spending. Incidentally, France is in deep trouble because of this. Their public spending as a % of GDP far exceeds peers.
> maybe start by Thomas Piketty's work: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Piketty
Piketty is decidedly heterodox, and I've read Capital in the 21st Century, though not his latest which as I understand revisits much of the same. Wealth taxes have been tried in several countries including Austria, and promptly dropped. That's because they do not work well. It's difficult to implement and the returns just aren't good.
