Empirical analysis is the most important analysis in modern western economics. As a science, economics is scientific in nature, which is different from other disciplines including natural science. To make economics a real science, we must first reveal the objective laws of the development and changes of various economic phenomena and correctly answer what the objective facts are, which is achieved through empirical analysis.
Research methods of western economics;
I. Empirical Analysis and Normative Analysis Empirical analysis in economics refers to excluding subjective value judgments and only objectively analyzing economic phenomena, economic behaviors or economic activities and their development trends. It only considers the interrelated laws of economic things, and analyzes and predicts the effect of people's economic behavior according to these laws. It only answers the objective thing "what". Normative analysis is based on a certain value judgment, explaining whether a specific economic thing is good or bad, whether it meets a certain value standard, and what it should answer is what a thing should look like. It involves ethics and value judgment. Therefore, many economists believe that empirical analysis methods and normative analysis methods should be combined in the study of economics.
Second, static analysis and dynamic analysis Static analysis, also known as equilibrium analysis, refers to a short-term analysis of economic operation. It mainly studies what is an equilibrium state and the conditions needed to reach it, but does not care about the process and time needed to reach it. If the time factor is introduced into economic analysis, the actual change process of how the original equilibrium point transits to the new equilibrium point is analyzed in detail when the independent variable changes, which is dynamic analysis. Because the focus of dynamic analysis is to study the process of actual change, it is also called process analysis.
3. Stock and flow analysis Stock and flow are two important concepts that are often encountered in economic analysis. It is of great significance to clarify the concepts of stock and flow and analyze the relationship between them for understanding the quantitative relationship of economic activities. The so-called stock refers to the numerical value of variables that exist at a certain point in time. For example, on February 3 1 day, the total amount of national bank savings deposits and the total amount of national fixed assets were 200 1. The so-called flow refers to the numerical value of variables that occur in a certain period of time. For example, in 200 1 year, the total national bank savings deposits and the total national fixed assets.
4. Marginal analysis Marginal analysis is a widely used analytical method in western economics. The so-called marginal analysis has two meanings: one is the meaning of increment, the other is the increment brought by the last unit in a certain quantity, which can be positive or negative in quantity. So the marginal concept refers to the increment brought by the last added unit in a certain quantity.
Western economics believes that introducing marginal analysis method into economic analysis is a revolution in economics, especially in its quantitative analysis, marginal concepts and marginal analysis methods are widely used. For example, there are concepts such as marginal utility, marginal cost, marginal product and marginal income in microeconomics; There are marginal propensity to consume and marginal propensity to save in objective economics.