DSGE models are defended because abandoning them threatens the entire economics orthodoxy

Evidence

But of course there were alternatives studded throughout the literature, ones that had been proposed repeatedly by those seeking to exit the “big tent” of orthodox macroeconomics. The immediate task is instead to ask, Why are so many economists so loathe to let go of the DSGE? All the usual considerations of inertia and sunk costs of intellectual commitment come into play; but there is something else, as well. One way to understand such intransigence is to explore the possibility that excision of the DSGE cannot staunch the bleeding of the American economics profession; for these economists, renunciation of the DSGE is a slippery slope to the dissolution of the entire economic orthodoxy. Après DSGE, la déluge. — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 796

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the earlier chapters on how the thought collective defends its core commitments; also resonates with the ‘lakatosian hard core’ framing of economics orthodoxy.