Overmathematized Econ...

It's been quite a while, but I'm back...and back to one of this blog's usual topics, Economics. This time it to critizise the missuse of Math dealing with Econ. Economics is the science of human decision, of how we allocate scarce resources. It should stick to being that. When we use mathematical models to model human behavior it is only to better express ourselves and to try to explain reality in a simpler way. When we use math incorrectly in our strife for nature's explanation, we are not doing Economics anymore, but applied Math. Where am I going?

It has become popular use to talk about a cotinuum of agents, a continuum of producers, or a continuum of goods in the [0,1] set. Here, when talking about a continuum of goods produced by a continuum of producers, the total output will equal the average output. What does this even mean? It is folly, useless to explain reality. Why do serious journals (as Econometrica, AER or the Journal of Political Economy) continue to publish papers with such kind of models? These models are unscientific in as much they do not ptovie insight to what happens in reality. But you know, this is just a thought.