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Economics Nobel laureate Paul Romer is a Python programming convert

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Re: Economics Nobel laureate Paul Romer is a Python programming convert

#11

Post by hellogoodbyeeee »

21 wrote: post #7

> he tried to use Mathematica to share one of his studies in a way that anyone could explore every detail of his data and methods. It didn’t work. He says that Mathematica’s owner, Wolfram Research, made it too difficult to share his work in a way that didn’t require other people to use the proprietary software, too Sometimes I wonder where Mathematica would be if it were open sourced lets say in 2010. It had such a…

I loved using Mathematica in college. It was the first programming language I ever really used to make some cool things. I wish it was more accessible. I think one of the requirements of my dream job would be a work place that uses Mathematica.

It's really fun reading through "code golf" challenges where other languages take 10-15 lines for something that Mathematica has a built in for.

Re: Economics Nobel laureate Paul Romer is a Python programming convert

#13

Post by dhimes »

TorKlingberg wrote: post #2

I'm surprised there seems to be have been no HN discussion on this years Economics prize. Or are my HS search skills lacking?

Maybe part of the problem is that unless you delve beyond layman level (and maybe even if you do?) economics is close-coupled to political views, and those start wars- so we tend to steer clear on this board.

Re: Economics Nobel laureate Paul Romer is a Python programming convert

#14

Post by mxuribe »

Beyond the cool python angle, I find the following statement quite interesting: "...James Somers argued that Jupyter notebooks may replace the traditional research paper typically shared as a PDF..." I've only been exposed to jupyter notebook references here and there...but i guess i should become a little more familiar with them.

Re: Economics Nobel laureate Paul Romer is a Python programming convert

#15

Post by jabl »

hellogoodbyeeee wrote: post #11
21 wrote: post #7

> he tried to use Mathematica to share one of his studies in a way that anyone could explore every detail of his data and methods. It didn’t work. He says that Mathematica’s owner, Wolfram Research, made it too difficult to share his work in a way that didn’t require other people to use the proprietary software, too Sometimes I wonder where Mathematica would be if it were open sourced lets say in 2010. It had such a…

I loved using Mathematica in college. It was the first programming language I ever really used to make some cool things. I wish it was more accessible. I think one of the requirements of my dream job would be a work place that uses Mathematica. It's really fun reading through "code golf" challenges where other languages take 10-15 lines for something that Mathematica has a built in for.

I used Mathematica a lot as an undergrad, but more or less exclusively for doing symbolic math, mostly tricky or tedious integrals.

Much later I realized that it's actually a more or less full-fledged programming language as well, but, I never got into that.

Re: Economics Nobel laureate Paul Romer is a Python programming convert

#16

Post by lellotope »

Am I missing something or are parts of this article really distorted?

For example, this seems to set up most of the article:

"Economics involves a lot of math and statistics. The most commonly used tools to crunch numbers are the spreadsheet software Microsoft Excel and programming languages Stata and Mathematica."

Is this really true? Mathematica and Stata seem like established but niche products to me at this point. I wouldn't say either of them are "the most commonly used tools to crunch numbers."

If you asked me to predict what a quantitative economist would be using, it would be Python, followed by R, and maybe followed by Java or C, or something like that.

This was an interesting article in the sense I like learning these sorts of things about people, but the premise seemed off to me.

But I'm not an economist so maybe this is something about economics per se.

Re: Economics Nobel laureate Paul Romer is a Python programming convert

#17

Post by wjossey »

lellotope wrote: post #16

Am I missing something or are parts of this article really distorted? For example, this seems to set up most of the article: "Economics involves a lot of math and statistics. The most commonly used tools to crunch numbers are the spreadsheet software Microsoft Excel and programming languages Stata and Mathematica." Is this really true? Mathematica and Stata seem like established but niche products to me at this point…

Nate Silver shared that a vast majority of the latest five thirty eight model for 2018 is constructed in Stata. Just an anecdote, but fairly practical example of something recently written that’s using that technology.

Re: Economics Nobel laureate Paul Romer is a Python programming convert

#18

Post by thousandautumns »

lellotope wrote: post #16

Am I missing something or are parts of this article really distorted? For example, this seems to set up most of the article: "Economics involves a lot of math and statistics. The most commonly used tools to crunch numbers are the spreadsheet software Microsoft Excel and programming languages Stata and Mathematica." Is this really true? Mathematica and Stata seem like established but niche products to me at this point…

Depends on the field. In the social sciences, Mathematica and Stata are probably the most widely used tools. Might be that way for economics too, but I'm not sure.

Re: Economics Nobel laureate Paul Romer is a Python programming convert

#19

Post by prepend »

lellotope wrote: post #16

Am I missing something or are parts of this article really distorted? For example, this seems to set up most of the article: "Economics involves a lot of math and statistics. The most commonly used tools to crunch numbers are the spreadsheet software Microsoft Excel and programming languages Stata and Mathematica." Is this really true? Mathematica and Stata seem like established but niche products to me at this point…

“If you asked me to predict what a quantitative economist would be using, it would be Python, followed by R, and maybe followed by Java or C, or something like that.”

I too was looking for good data. It’s hard to measure this as practical application doesn’t line up with publication.

I was surprised when I started working in health 10 years ago that the predominant tool was Excel, and then SAS. Even 5 years ago in health grad school, they only taught SAS.

This is slowly changing to R and python, but general data analysis skills is less than basic engineering stuff 20 years ago.

Re: Economics Nobel laureate Paul Romer is a Python programming convert

#20

Post by bitxbit »

lellotope wrote: post #16

Am I missing something or are parts of this article really distorted? For example, this seems to set up most of the article: "Economics involves a lot of math and statistics. The most commonly used tools to crunch numbers are the spreadsheet software Microsoft Excel and programming languages Stata and Mathematica." Is this really true? Mathematica and Stata seem like established but niche products to me at this point…

Most quantitative economists do not use Python. They use Stata, SAS, EViews, etc. For methods not yet implemented, the go to application is Matlab (matrix). Python has been gaining traction in the past five years however.
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