Methodology of economic research

THE PAPERS that the present volume contains were originally presented at a Seminar on Methodology of Economic Re search held under the auspices of the A. N. Sinha Institute of Social Studies in the summer of 1966. There is a certain special feature in the collection. It is not a disquisition on methodology in the abstract. There is no pleading in any of these papers in favour of any distinct methodology. The papers exhibit the experience of the authors in the process of their own research the provocations that led them to a particular enquiry and the challenge that they had to meet in the course of their investigations. The seminar to which they were pre sented was designed in that way; specific requests were made to the participants, asking them to present some kind of a personal report on the techniques that they used in their re searches. It was a difficult assignment. But the authors have done their job with commendable success. There is a certain element of individuality and freshness of approach in the essays which, one hopes, will please the reader.

The Seminar was split up into separate groups, each group relating to a different type of economic research. We started with the methodology of analytical-cum-applied work, then went on to the survey-type empirical research requiring team work, and ended up with researches in economic history. Whether such clear-cut divisions of types of research are appropriate or even possible to make is a doubtful question; at least one of the participants did question its validity. The division is somewhat arbitrary indeed. And yet it was done, if only to facilitate discussion. My own experience is that it did help our discussions proceed along manageable lines. In the ordering of the papers in this volume, however, no grouping has been shown, although the sequence in which they were presented at the Seminar has been preserved. The group discussions are summarised separately in the form of Rapporteurs' Reports.