Comment of the Day: Kansas Jack: Benchmark, Model, and Hypothesis:
This is a very nice essay...
...Friedman's Positive Economics essay has been getting slammed recently. Noah Smith took some recent pot shots. I think these are warranted but too harsh. If we replace Friedman's word "assumptions" with "axioms" then his most important moral remains. In order to be useful the refutable hypothesis must lead to an observation (or lack thereof) in the real economic world. It cannot refute or support some other theoretical model. Comparing a model with another model is only useful if one of those is predicting something about the world we live in...
