Using Econometrics for Assessing Economic Models

Background and motivation: Econometrics is often used passively to provide the economist with some parameter estimates in a model which from the outset is assumed to be empirically relevant. In this sense, econometrics is used to illustrate what we believe is true rather than to find out whether our chosen model needs to be modified or changed altogether.
The econometric analyses of this special issue should take its departure from the latter more critical approach. We would like to encourage submissions of papers addressing questions like whether a specific economic model is empirically relevant in general or, more specifically, in a more specific context, such as in open, closed, deregulated, underdeveloped, mature economies, etc. For example, are models which were useful in the seventies still relevant in the more globalized world of today? If not, can we use the econometric analysis to find out why this is the case and to suggest modifications of the theory model?
We encourage papers that make a significant contribution to the discussion of macroeconomics and reality, for example, by assessing the empirical relevance of influential papers, or the robustness of policy conclusions to econometric misspecification and the ceteris paribus clause, or by comparing different expectations's schemes, such as the relevance of forward versus backward expectations and of model consistent rational expectations versus imperfect/incomplete knowledge expectations, etc.