Amen to that.

One characteristic of science that economics seems to lack are semi-porous and productive boundaries with other sciences. At a certain point in the study of physics one starts doing what could be called chemistry. Similarly, at a certain (vague) point chemistry hands the ball off to biology and biology eventually gives way to ecology, etc. At these boundaries, each science informs the other and the dividing line is often arbitrary or undefined, Mainstream/neoclassical economics, however, seems to exist in a scientific vacuum, with almost no interaction with, for instance, the geophysical sciences or ecology despite the vastness, importance, and complexity of the interactions between economic, ecological and geophysical phenomena. Behavioral economists seem to be making progress at the micro-economics level vis a vis psychology, as you allude to above, but until economics rigorously and methodically connects itself to other empirical fields of knowledge it seems unsurprising to me that a great deal of it will just be so much wanking.

It also occurs to me that shifts in economic thinking bear more resemblance to changing trends in fashion than to any sort of Kuhnian paridigm shifting (cf Cambridge capital controversies–interesting stuff, but nothing remotely resembling science going on there). I presume this is due to the relative lack of empirical results that inevitably lead to the theoretically intolerable anomalies that motivate scientific revolutions. I suspect that, at least as far as intellectual discourse and culture goes, most academic economists would be more comfortable in comparative literature departments than in chemistry or physics departments.

Q: Why do you think there is more consensus amongst economists over microeconomic issues compared to macroeconomic issues?

A: In part because micro is less important and in part because, believe it or not, I think that the empirical standards are lower in microeconomics. Let me justify what I mean. When Rudi Dornbusch and I came to write our principles book I knew macro well but hadn't done much micro for a long time. I thought it was going to be a breeze, the macro part we know and the micro part is all clear – there would be a thousand empirical equations out there to illustrate demand and supply curves. Well the empirical backing isn't around very much – there are lots of stories and models but I don't think micro focuses on a set of issues in the same way that macro does. Microeconomists are not called upon to explain real-world phenomena to anything like the extent that macroeconomists are. They don't have a daily confrontation with policy makers, the newspapers and the capital markets. One of the very successful micro fields is finance, partly because they are really pushed to come up with something that will stand the test of a lot of very sceptical people.

From A Modern Guide to Macroeconomics, first edition.