A11 - Role of Economics; Role of Economists; Market for EconomistsReturn

The paper poses the question whether the economics of science could be the key to economic methodology. First, the sociology of science, which tries to put science in social context, is described. Then, the economic approach to science inspired by Bartley, Wible, Tullock, Stigler and Becker is explained. We point out that knowledge originates in the competitive process of scientific criticism in similar way as economic wealth originates in the competitive market process and the competition among many individuals.

The paper deals with quality of economic research in Slovakia, which is strongly connected with quality of economic education at Slovak universities. Quality of economic research is described by publication activity of Slovak professors of economics, who are usually the leaders in number of publications and citations and used to be internationally recognised. The paper does not seek for possible roots or explanations of the situation. It only tries to describe the status quo and provide useful data and comparisons.

Traditional consensus surveys among economists seem to suffer from two shortcomings. First, they target the consensus issue in a way that tends to underestimate the agreement among economists, and second, they fail to offer information about how much economists' agreed - upon position matches the actual policy, which is what, ultimately, most economists care for most. In this paper, I introduce a redesigned survey that attempts to remedy both shortcomings at once by asking about preferred direction of policy changes in selected areas. Based on data from such survey undertaken among economists in the Czech Republic, I specifically ask about 1) the degree of consensus, and 2) the existence of a gap between such consensus and actual policy. The analysis of the survey data lends support to notions that 1) there is a solid, though not universally convincing consensus (regarding policy changes), 2) there is a gap in most areas of policy between what economists see as desirable and what the policy/makers practice.

On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of establishment of the Politická ekonomie economic periodical six articles were published in 2003 reviewing the history, rise and fall of this journal in 1953 - 1989. This review presents to foreign readers a brief outline of economic thinking in this country in the period concerned that was reflected in articles published by Czech and Slovak economists in Politická ekonomie.