Qualitative reasoning on economic models

Qualitative analysis has a long tradition in economic modeling . The application of mathematical methods, either quantitative or qualitative, to analyse an economic model stipulates strong assumptions. These assumptions restrict the analysis on a special case of the more general, verbally stated model. Furthermore the application of these methods is successful in analysing small models only . In this paper it is discussed, whether a qualitative formulation of an economic model and its qualitative analysis via qualitative reasoning will result in statements describing the behavior of the model. Doing this, economists can avoid the pitfalls of having to state the model as a concrete system of differential equations . However it is not expected to achieve different results. Beyond this, maybe more complex models can be analysed qualitatively .