This paper asks the question: Why has the "general-to-specific" cointegrated VAR approach as developed in Europe had only limited success in the US as a tool for doing empirical macroeconomics, where what might be called a "theory comes first" approach dominates? The reason this paper highlights...

David Colander has been writing about economic methodology for over 30 years, but he goes out of his way to emphasize that he does not see himself as a methodologist. His pragmatic methodology is applicable to what economists are doing and attempts to answer questions that all economists face as...