Mathiness has been a problem for a long time, I first became aware of it in the 1980’s. There’s little grounding of it, and not enough rigor in connecting it to events and states of the world to be able to compare economic models.<p>Since the behavior of humans is difficult to model and not “rational” in many cases, there are additional challenges to doing much useful in the way of economic modelling. Behavioral economics in the small may have some predictive power, but good luck forecasting fashion trends.<p>Plus, and maybe this is a flame inducer, there is a huge overlap with politics.