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'Mainstream economics' is the term used to distinguish economics in general from heterodox approaches and schools such as feminist economics and Marxian economics. Mainstream economists do not, in general, identify themselves as members of a particular school; they may, however, be associated with approaches within a field such as the rational-expectations approach to macroeconomics.
The term came into common use in the late 20th century. It appears in the influential textbook by Samuelson and Nordhaus,^[1] on the inside back cover in the "Family Tree of Economics," which depicts arrows into it from J.M. Keynes (1936) and neoclassical economics (1860-1910). An earlier and narrower term first appearing in Samuelson's textbook (1955), is ''neoclassical synthesis'' (of neoclassical economics and Keynesian macroeconomics).^[2]
Mainstream economics includes theories of market and government failure and private and public goods. These developments suggest a range of views on the desirability or otherwise of government intervention.
Mainstream economics may employ axioms or postulates in stating a theory. Testing the theoretical and empirical implications of those postulates is a standard method of mainstream economics.
Some fields may be described as being partly within mainstream economics, partly within heterodox economics. Some of them are Austrian economics^[3], institutional economics, neuroeconomics and non-linear complexity theory.^[4][5]
They may use neoclassical economics as a point of departure.
A countervailing trend is the expansion of mainstream methods to such seemingly distant fields as crime
^[6]
the family, law, politics, and religion.
^[7]
The latter phenomenon is sometimes referred to as economic imperialism.^[8]

Contents

References

References

1. Paul A. Samuelson and William D Nordhaus (2001), 17th ed.,Economics
2. Olivier Jean Blanchard (1987), "neoclassical synthesis," ''The '', v. 3, pp. 634-36.
3. ''A Companion to the History of Economic Thought'' (2003). Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 0631225730 p. 452
4. David Colander, Richard P. F. Holt, and Barkley J. Rosser, Jr. (2004), "The Changing Face of Mainstream Economics," ''Review of Political Economy'', 16(4), pp.485-499. (abstract)
5. John B. Davis (2006), "The Turn in Economics: Neoclassical Dominance to Mainstream Pluralism?", ''Journal of Institutional Economics'', 2(1), pp. 1-20. (PDF article link)
6. David D. Friedman (2002), "Crime," ''The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics'',[1]
7. Laurence R. Iannaccone (1998), "Introduction to the Economics of Religion," ''Journal of Economic Literature'', 36(3), pp. 1465-1496.
[[2]
8.
Edward Lazear (2000),
Economic Imperialism, , (2000)., , The Quarterly Journal of Economics, , 115(1), pp. 99-146.