ARNOLD HARBERGER, THE WAY OF THINKING AND MODELS: Recomentations to economic research and teaching by Ihering Guedes Alcoforado

O objetivo das recomendações de Harberger com relação a pesquisa e ensino do que nomeava a “boa economia” é naturalizar a forma de pensar e de racionar a partir do frame econômico desenvolvido em Chicago. Este entendimento decorre das suas observações do curso de Milton Friedman sobre a Teoria dos Prêços, o qual no seu entendimento

(Friedman) did not want us to learn price theory but to imbibe it — to make it part of our natural way of thinking, observing, and reacting to what we see.
That same spirit — of economics as a set of tools whose raison d’etre
was to be used to help us understand and interpret what we see in the world
around us — came to Chicago students not only from Friedman but from
many other sources” [HARBERGER, 1988: 4/5]

Um outro ponto fundamental na formação do economista, é que os economistas devem ser estimulados e capacitados “Try seriously to distill, out of the huge corpus of knowledge inherited form the past, those parts that are most relevant for understanding the world we see around us.[…] [HARBERGER, 1988: 4]

Além de “Be skeptical and wary when exploring the frontiers of economic theory and research.” [HARBERGER, 1998], de forma a evitar os erros decorrentes da aceitação ingênua de certos conceitos e abordagens. Eis suas palavras:

“Let me state at the outset that I am a firm, even passionate believer in
simple economic models. I draw a sharp line between models whose
mechanics we can actually comprehend, and those that are so complicated
that, if we act on what they tell us, it is because we trust rather than understand their results. I cannot imagine going to a ministry or a central bank citing an urgent need for policy action or policy change, and having to respond, when asked why I am pressing this case, “you must do this, — because that is what my model says should be done.” Among other things, it is almost certain that somebody else’s model will, at the same time and place, be indicating some different action.
So simple models are needed, just so we can understand what they are
really saying, i.e., so we can explain to a minister or Central Bank president
what is the precise causal chain through which our proposed policy will
work. But, since the complexities of the world are infinitely greater than
any man-made model can capture, we have no alternative not just to simplifying but to greatly oversimplifying, any time we seek to reduce those
complexities to something we really can understand. But herein lies the
problem: most oversimplifications will end up missing the point, just getting
things wrong. In our work in economics, we look for artful and meaningful
oversimplifications, that somehow capture the essence of the situation or
problem or mechanism that we are studying. This is the wonder of the timetested tools that represent the fundamentals of our discipline.

But not all of our oversimplifications are as robust as the concepts of
supply and demand, or as the demand function for real monetary balances.
And in fact, some quite fragile ones have somehow found their way to center
stage in the economic literature of recent decades. The rest of this section is
devoted to a brief review of a small selection of these” [HARBERGER, 1998/12]

E reforça seu argumento com o uso espúrio dos modelo a partir dos seus comentários sobre “ Representative Consumer”:

“
Economic models embodying a representative consumer are very
convenient ways to illustrate certain basic economic forces. What these
models do, in effect, is display the analogies between almost any economy
and Robinson Crusoe’s island autarchy. When Crusoe saved, he also invested,
and that is true of modern economies too in a certain very real sense. Faced
with variable harvests of storable foodstuffs, Crusoe would practice
“consumption smoothing”, building up stocks in boom years and running
them down when harvests were bad. This, too, is what much more complex
modern economics tend to do. So the analogy is apt, up to a point.
But the analogy fails badly when applied to big macroeconomic events.” [ HARBERGER, 1998:12]

E, por fim ele recomenda que se “participate actively and eagerly in the struggle to bring diagnostics to center stage in both teaching and research.” [HABERGER, 1998:4]

Enfim, uma agenda simples e sensata para o que nomeia de “working economists” que trabalhando no setor público opera “ […] in the public sector can contribute in similar ways, serving as antibodies to combat anti-economic ideas and policies, and/or as carriers and supporters
of sound economic concepts, contributing step by step to the progress of
economic policy and its implementation.”[HARBERGER, 1998:3].

Mais simples, direto e sensato, impossível.

BIBLIOGRAFIA

HARBERGER, Arnold C., (1998) Letter to a Younger Generation, Journal of Applied Economics, 1:1, 1–33,