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| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Preprint |
| Published: |
2023
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.15723 |
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| _version_ | 1866915704990597120 |
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| author | Whitmeyer, Mark Zhang, Kun |
| author_facet | Whitmeyer, Mark Zhang, Kun |
| contents | We revisit Popper's falsifiability criterion. A tester hires a potential expert to produce a theory, offering payments contingent on the observed performance of the theory. In our model, instead of knowing the true data-generating process, the expert knows the state-of-the-art belief over data-generating processes. A non-expert does not. We argue that if the expert can, moreover, acquire additional information to refine this knowledge, falsifiability does have the power to distinguish between experts and non-experts and to identify valuable theories, capitalizing on experts' ability to acquire and refine knowledge. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2303_15723 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2023 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Redeeming Falsifiability? Whitmeyer, Mark Zhang, Kun Theoretical Economics We revisit Popper's falsifiability criterion. A tester hires a potential expert to produce a theory, offering payments contingent on the observed performance of the theory. In our model, instead of knowing the true data-generating process, the expert knows the state-of-the-art belief over data-generating processes. A non-expert does not. We argue that if the expert can, moreover, acquire additional information to refine this knowledge, falsifiability does have the power to distinguish between experts and non-experts and to identify valuable theories, capitalizing on experts' ability to acquire and refine knowledge. |
| title | Redeeming Falsifiability? |
| topic | Theoretical Economics |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.15723 |