Wants, needs and production
What is a ‘want’ and what is a ‘need’? Do these things change over time and how do we provide for them? These are the issues being considered by Pablo at Kiwipolitico in a fashion that may confuse many...
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Bleg: Facts and beliefs
Question: Why is it that, in economics (compared to other disciplines), people are a lot less likely to let observed facts change their opinion on what is going on, or how the world works? Is it...
View ArticleRobots, uber richness, unemployment: Points to keep in mind
I think the statement “points to keep” in mind is currently my favourite thing around … however, I digress and I haven’t actually started the post yet. Over at the Dim Post Danyl has an interesting...
View ArticleThe importance of incentives
This story is a great example of how institutions can shape incentives, in order to change outcomes. The women of Barbacoas, Colombia have ended a three-month, 19-day “crossed legs” strike of sexual...
View ArticleNeuroeconomics is exciting, and scary
Great article from Shiller on neuroeconomics. The more justification, and more positive side, of neuroeconomics is mentioned here: Under Samuelson’s guidance, generations of economists have based...
View ArticleThe issue of assumptions
In a recent post, James recently raised an essential, and fascinating, point on assumptions. To borrow his own words: Assumptions are often made for tractability, rather than realism, yet still...
View ArticleEthics and description
In the past couple of days I’ve run into a couple of places in the internet that left we confused. First, via Education Directions I noticed this article on the way of “valuing assets” that takes into...
View ArticleTwo links that reinforce my priors
On bubbles (My point: I keep hearing bubbles matter because “financial stability influences monetary policy” like it is a big idea … but really, no sh*t. Government spending “influences” monetary...
View ArticleThe excel error in Rogoff-Reinhart
I see the Rogoff-Reinhart figures regarding the correlation between GDP growth and the size of the debt stock are currently under attack – due largely to an unfortunate excel error discovered reported...
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On economics as method
Via Mark Thoma’s twitter feed came this gem on “neo-classical economics”. It strongly supports my view on what economics is so let’s have a peak at the conclusion: I sometimes argue that the main...
View ArticleResource booms and income distribution
Via Vox Eu comes a piece looking at the distributional consequences of resource booms – using Australian data. Their conclusion: We need good time series data from developing countries to see whether...
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Quote of the day: Pinker on changes in social sciences
Via Noah Smith. We have the following post on the Pinker vs Wieseltier debate on science and humanities (if you have a chance I would suggest reading the debates themselves as well). The era in which...
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On microfoundations
Some recent post on the necessity of microfoundations that I found interesting. Issues about microfoundations. Why you don’t need rigorous microfoundations. Update: Zombie Marx – illustrating the...
View ArticleBreaking windows, doors, and GDP
This week Mieke Welvaert discussed (Infometrics link) the broken window fallacy. GDP measures the value produced within a geographic entity. Even though it seems damaging property could increase GDP,...
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Quote of the day: Uskali Maki on economics
From the prelude to ‘Fact and Fiction in Economics‘ comes the following gem by Maki: “Is economics a respectful and useful reality-oriented discipline or just an intellectual game that economists play...
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What does it mean to have “many models”
Dani Rodrik has been arguing that the mistake many economists, and non-economists, make is to look for “one right model” – when in truth economics is a form of craft, where you have a multitude of...
View ArticleBefore railing against economics, read this
I had trouble getting out of bed this morning, so to help get me going I decided to read an essay about economics. And I ran back into a treat of an essay I think we should all read. This is Modern...
View ArticleThinking about what ‘economics’ is
I am trying to gradually clarify my perception of what economics is. Here are some cliff notes from a recent discussion I had: Economists try to answer questions about “the allocation of resources...
View ArticleCan physicists please look at a basic textbook before releasing these things
FFS, this is probably the worst example of a physicist treating economists like idiots, and saying something both meaningless and already known, that I’ve seen for a while (via Marginal Revolution)....
View ArticleCommon sense, economics, and beliefs
I see Scott Sumner has come out saying that we shouldn’t necessarily judge economic outcomes on whether they meet a “common sense” test, giving the example of an individual looking at social security....
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