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Cambridge Journal of Economics Advance Access originally published online on November 29, 2007
Cambridge Journal of Economics 2008 32(3):349-366; doi:10.1093/cje/bem048
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© The Author 2007. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Cambridge Political Economy Society. All rights reserved.

The turn in recent economics and return of orthodoxy

John B. Davis*

* University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands and Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI, USA. The author is grateful for comments on previous versions of this paper to Mark Blaug, Dan Bromley, Bruce Caldwell, David Colander, Wilfred Dolfsma, Sheila Dow, Zohreh Emami, Ross Emmett, Wade Hands, Jack Vromen, Warren Samuels, Esther-Mirjam Sent, and Eric Schliesser

Address for correspondence: Economics, Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI 53201-1881 USA; email: john.davis{at}mu.edu

This paper examines change on the economics research frontier, and asks whether the current competition between new research programmes may be supplanted by a new single dominant approach in the future. The paper discusses whether economics tends to be dominated by a single approach or reflect a pluralism of approaches, and argues that, historically, it has alternated between the two. It argues that orthodoxy usually emerges from heterodoxy, and interprets the division between orthodoxy and heterodoxy in terms of a core–periphery distinction. Regarding recent economics, the paper maps out two different types of combinations of new research programmes as being synchronic or diachronic in nature. It treats the new research programmes as a new kind of heterodoxy, and asks how a new orthodoxy might arise out of this new heterodoxy and traditional heterodoxy. It discusses this question by advancing two views regarding how to different types of combinations in the new research programmes might consolidate along the lines of three shared commitments with traditional heterodoxy to form a new orthodoxy in economics.

Key Words: Recent economics • Orthodoxy • Heterodoxy • Core–periphery

JEL classifications: B2, B5

Manuscript received September 18, 2006; final version received October 11, 2007.


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