Quote Originally Posted by a500lbgorilla View Post
How does Macro use the scientific method?
One I've mentioned before.

In 2013, the US enacted fiscal austerity and monetary expansion. The Keynesians, headed up by Paul Krugman, said this this fiscal austerity would cost IIRC ~600k jobs over the next year. Market Monestarists, headed up by Scott Sumner, said it would not because of the monetary offset the Fed declared it would engage. Krugman said this would be a test of Market Monetarism (since Krugman loves the "us vs them" bullshit). Sumner said it wouldn't because clearly that's not how you test a dynamic broad system, but that it would be a test of the specific predictions and claims for why.

So, Keynesians said the economy would slow down in comparison to the fiscal austerity while Market Monetarists said it would stay the same or possibly speed up slightly because of the monetary offset. 2013 happened, it sped up slightly. Krugman acted like it never happened, Sumner continued doing what he does.

This is an example of forming a question, developing a hypothesis, making a prediction, running a test, and analyzing the results. It's a whole lot easier when you have a lab, but this is still the scientific method.