Modern economic theory and stylized facts

Abstract

The article is devoted to the role of stylized facts in the formation and implementation of a research program. The state of modern economic theory is considered from the standpoint of using the generalization method as one of the main methods of scientific knowledge. Three potential sources of weakness in theoretical research have been identified: insufficient attention to stylized facts, a shortage of such facts themselves, and ignoring the possibilities of reducing this deficit. Insufficient attention is illustrated, in particular, by the example of a macroeconomic description of technological renewal of production. Even advanced models of macroeconomic dynamics tend to ignore the existence of a period of simultaneous development of old and new technologies, during which the new ones used are still inferior in their characteristics to the old technologies. In the context of the transition to digital technologies, it becomes especially important to take into account the effects of scale characteristic of these technologies, but they are not taken into account in the new neoclassical synthesis. Modern digital technologies open up prospects for the formation of “quasi-stylized” facts with the help of models capable of simulating long-term experience of economic development in a short time. The peculiarity of stylized facts for different time periods is due to the use of specialized theories for individual stages of economic development.