 The past half century has witnessed the emergence of a large literature devoted to economic methodology. That literature explores many methodological approaches and applies its conclusions to many schools and branches of economics. Much of the literature has focused on the fundamental theory of mainstream economics — the theory of the equilibria resulting from constrained rational individual choice — but the tremendous importance of macroeconomics in determining the proper responses to the great recession beginning in 2008, coupled with the rapidly increasing role of empirical and experimental inquiries in the day-to-day work of economists have seen echoes in methodological inquiries (Backhouse 2010). Since 1985, there has been a journal Economics and Philosophy devoted specifically to philosophy of economics, and since 1994 there has also been a Journal of Economic Methodology. This section will sample some of the methodological approaches of the past two decades.