Monday, April 19, 2010

Economic Geography

Interesting. P-Kroog's address to the American Association of Geographers.

Excerpt:

Many economic geographers proper were furious at the rise of the new geographical economics. That was predictable: near the end of that 1990 monograph I foretold the reaction, and also explained why I was doing what I was doing:

“The geographers themselves probably won’t like this: the economics profession’s simultaneous love for rigor and contempt for realism will surely prove infuriating. I do not come here, however, to fight against the sociology of my profession, but to exploit it: by demonstrating that models of economic geography can be cute and fun, I hope to attract other people into tilling this nearly virgin soil.”

Actually, the reaction was even worse than I expected. As it happens, starting in the 1980s many geographers were moving even further from mainstream economics -- there was a widespread rejection not just of the assumptions of rational behavior and equilibrium, but of the whole notion of mathematical modeling and even the use of quantitative methods


(Nod to Neanderbill)

3 comments:

Tom said...

Krugman keeps living down to my expectations. I can't fathom why people are still paying attention to this man.

Anonymous said...

Post Modernism has taken over many a geography department. My guess is it's the old "math (and econometrics) is hard" canard. What to do? Follow the English department into the post-modern mosh pit.

PLW said...

I'm confused by Tom's response. You can't understand why people in some field (new economic geography) pay attention to the person who basically founded their field? I think there would need to be pretty exceptional circumstances for that not to be true.