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Mathiness is a term coined by Paul Romer to label a specific misuse of mathematics in economic analyses. An author committed to the norms of science should use mathematical reasoning to clarify his analyses. Contrary to that Mathiness is a smokescreen of equations that disguises an ideological agenda set by unrealistic assumptions.〔Financial Times, Tim Harford, (Down with mathiness! )〕 == Adoption of the term == The first usage of the term was at the annual meeting of the American Economic Association in January 2015. Afterwards Paul Romer published his article ''Mathiness in the Theory of Economic Growth'' in the American Economic Review.〔Bruegel (institution), Jérémie Cohen-Setton, (Mathiness in economics )〕 The coinage mathiness follows the pattern of truthiness coined by comedian Stephen Colbert.〔BloombergView, Noah Smith, (How 'Mathiness' Made Me Jaded About Economics )〕 Romer warns that mathiness is distorting economics:〔Bloomberg, Justin Fox, (What's Wrong With 'Mathiness' in Economics? )〕 He specifically points to some work of Edward C. Prescott, Robert Lucas, Jr. and Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty〔Financial Times, Tim Harford, (Down with mathiness! )〕 and argues for a return to scientific rigor: == Discussion on Mathiness == Tim Harford draws a parallel to Politics and the English Language where George Orwell complained that politics is preferring a rhetorical fog to the usage of precise terms. Similarly the role of mathiness would be to hide unrealistic assumptions or pure hypothesis behind decorative math and therefore it is rather a case of politics than science. Justin Fox reminds that in his book ''Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics'' Richard Thaler documented how economists ignored real world phenomena because they did not fit into mainstream mathematical models.〔BloombergView, Justin Fox, (What's Wrong With 'Mathiness' in Economics? ), 20.5.2015〕 J. Bradford DeLong argued that mathiness means ″restricting your microfoundations in advance to guarantee a particular political result and hiding what you are doing in a blizzard of irrelevant and ungrounded algebra.″ He argues that this is what George Stigler did when he rejected to include Monopolistic competition in his models because in his mind it was too intellectually dangerous. The notion of imperfect competition could give an opening to interventionist "planning" while being unaware of the magnitudes of potential government failure. Therefore, requiring that models assume Perfect competition as a methodological principle was a "Noble Lie" to him. Paul Romer's problem is that he wants to analyze issues in which perfect competition is not leading forward but Prescott and Lucas are insisting on perfect competition as a methodological principle.〔J. Bradford DeLong, (Noah Smith, Paul Romer, "Mathiness", and Baking the Politics into the Microfoundations... )〕 Paul Krugman thinks that the debate about drawing macroeconomic conclusions from the Great Recession is obstructed by the fact that there are economists, and whole departments that remain wholly dominated by mathiness.〔The New York Times, Paul Krugman, (The Case of the Missing Minsky )〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Mathiness」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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