Working Papers

The WNE Working Papers series has been published by the Faculty of Economic Sciences at the University of Warsaw since 2008.

The WNE Working Papers series provides a fast, open channel for disseminating research conducted at the Faculty of Economic Sciences, University of Warsaw. The papers hosted here are working versions (pre-prints) and may evolve as authors refine their analyses, incorporate feedback, or progress through formal peer-review. What you read is the current version released by the authors, timestamped and assigned DOI/ISSN identifiers to ensure precise citation and version tracking. Copyright remains with the authors, who may, at any time, upload a revised file or add a note directing readers to a later, peer-reviewed publication.

The Working Papers series accepts articles by research employees of the Faculty and publications from conferences organised at the Faculty of Economic Sciences at the University of Warsaw. Articles should be original research papers which have not been previously published, on the subject of economics.

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(1) the main text without the title of the article and the authors (DOC/DOCX file) and

(2) the title page including: the title of the paper, the authors and their affiliation (DOC/DOCX file).

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Number of Results 1

WP(39/2026)533. Six Blind Men and the Economics-Elephant: Why Computational Power Cannot Cure Methodological Blindness

Authors: Kopczewski Tomasz, Okhrimenko Iana, Lisicki Jan
Economics rewards precision, but precision within a model does not establish what a result means, whether the represented object is economically admissible, or whether the conclusion travels to the world. This methodological essay builds a classroom …

WP533. Six Blind Men and the Economics-Elephant: Why Computational Power Cannot Cure Methodological Blindness

Economics rewards precision, but precision within a model does not establish what a result means, whether the represented object is economically admissible, or whether the conclusion travels to the world. This methodological essay builds a classroom prank on the Indian parable of the blind men and the elephant. Students solve slightly different calibrations of a two-sector Leontief model, reduce the answers to policy signs and vote; every system is solvable, yet thirty of the hundred coefficient pairs fail the Hawkins–Simon productivity condition. Six blind men extend the lesson to calculation, point equilibrium, binary inference, identification, aggregation and computational dynamics. In each case the well-behaved statistic is not the one that answers the economic question, and its good behaviour is what makes it persuasive. Artificial intelligence lowers the cost of building alternative models towards zero; the scarce input is the disposition to ask what a successful result is not showing.
 


DOI: https://doi.org/10.33138/2957-0506.2026.39.533
Kopczewski Tomasz, Okhrimenko Iana, Lisicki Jan
economic methodology model instability Hawkins–Simon condition statistical significance classroom demonstration
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