Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/171057 
Authors: 
Year of Publication: 
2017
Series/Report no.: 
CESifo Working Paper No. 6593
Publisher: 
Center for Economic Studies and ifo Institute (CESifo), Munich
Abstract: 
There is a fundamental difference between the natural and the social sciences due to reactivity. This difference remains even in the age of Artificially Intelligent Learning Machines and Big Data. Many academic economists take it as a matter of course that economics should become a natural science. Such a characterization misses an essential aspect of a social science, namely reactivity, i.e. human beings systematically respond to economic data, and in particular to interventions by economic policy, in a foreseeable way. To illustrate this finding, I use three examples from quite different fields: Happiness policy, World Heritage policy, and Science policy.
Subjects: 
economics
social
and natural science
reactivity
data
happiness
economic policy
JEL: 
A10
B40
C70
C80
D80
Z10
Document Type: 
Working Paper
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