Abduction in economics

a conceptual framework and its model

Fernando Tohmé

Ricardo F. Crespo

pp. 4215-4237

in: Synthese 190 (18), 2013.

Abstract

We discuss in this paper the scope of abduction in Economics. The literature on this type of inference shows that it can be interpreted in different ways, according to the role and nature of its outcome. We present a formal model that allows to capture these various meanings in different economic contexts.