Things Economists Agree On • Hacker News Board

Re: Things Economists Agree On

#11

Post by johnny22 » Sat, Oct 30, 2010, 1:34 AM UTC

dantheman wrote: post #8

sliverstorm wrote: post #4

I'm curious about the "Eliminate Agriculture Subsidies" one. I don't know enough to give a good opinion, but it seems to me like that could wind up pricing basic, quality food out of the hands of the poorest people, and they'd either have problems with starvation or be forced to eat junk. I mean, maybe I'm wrong, but I could have sworn it was The Man that is keeping eggs down at around $3/dozen and milk around $4/gal…

The government has very little to do with keeping food inexpensive, in fact through various forms of subsidies and tariffs they make some foods more expensive - sugar vs corn syrup. Also: Myth #3: Maintaining a cheap and stable food supply. Some contend that food markets would fluctuate wildly without farm subsidies. In reality, food prices of both subsidized and unsubsidized crops are relatively stable. Given that t…

can you quote something a little less biased?

Re: Things Economists Agree On

#12

Post by sdurkin » Sat, Oct 30, 2010, 1:36 AM UTC

sliverstorm wrote: post #4

I'm curious about the "Eliminate Agriculture Subsidies" one. I don't know enough to give a good opinion, but it seems to me like that could wind up pricing basic, quality food out of the hands of the poorest people, and they'd either have problems with starvation or be forced to eat junk. I mean, maybe I'm wrong, but I could have sworn it was The Man that is keeping eggs down at around $3/dozen and milk around $4/gal…

Actually, you'd like federally unsubsided foods. It would mean more locally grown produce and meats. Most of the big agricultural subsidies are for corn and sugar, the really bad stuff. Agricultural subsidies are making the nutrition crisis worse, not better.

Re: Things Economists Agree On

#13

Post by rmorrison » Sat, Oct 30, 2010, 1:37 AM UTC

sliverstorm wrote: post #4

I'm curious about the "Eliminate Agriculture Subsidies" one. I don't know enough to give a good opinion, but it seems to me like that could wind up pricing basic, quality food out of the hands of the poorest people, and they'd either have problems with starvation or be forced to eat junk. I mean, maybe I'm wrong, but I could have sworn it was The Man that is keeping eggs down at around $3/dozen and milk around $4/gal…

Also, read about what ethanol subsidies are doing to prices elsewhere. Farmers are replacing fields of grains and other crops with corn, in part because corn was already profitable before the subsidies. This has in turn increased the prices of a wide variety of food. One sad example are the prices of hops and barley, which has strained beloved micro-brewers.

Re: Things Economists Agree On

#14

Post by benmccann » Sat, Oct 30, 2010, 1:40 AM UTC

I found #4 and #11 to be interesting because it is difficult to spend money, reduce taxes, and not have a deficit. Everyone can agree that it'd be great to have all of those things. Economists are far less in agreement when it comes to what the correct balancing act is.

Re: Things Economists Agree On

#15

Post by splat » Sat, Oct 30, 2010, 1:44 AM UTC

I find it rather strange that even predictions that should be fairly clear-cut and straightforward (e.g. "A ceiling on rents reduces the quantity and quality of housing available.") only get around 9/10 agreement. As a non-economist, I would have thought that a seemingly simple (and testable!) question like that would be like polling physicsts with the question "Does F = ma?". And I would sure hope that more than 93% of physicists would say yes.

Re: Things Economists Agree On

#16

Post by alextp » Sat, Oct 30, 2010, 1:50 AM UTC

dcbell wrote: post #5

sliverstorm wrote: post #4

I'm curious about the "Eliminate Agriculture Subsidies" one. I don't know enough to give a good opinion, but it seems to me like that could wind up pricing basic, quality food out of the hands of the poorest people, and they'd either have problems with starvation or be forced to eat junk. I mean, maybe I'm wrong, but I could have sworn it was The Man that is keeping eggs down at around $3/dozen and milk around $4/gal…

"Basic, quality food" isn't the issue. Right now we have an abundance of junk made from subsidized crops. High fructose corn syrup only came into vogue because there was a surplus of corn lying around because of corn subsidies. Food represents such a small part of the average American's budget (about 12%) that the real restraints on healthy eating are convenience (Chicken sandwich---five minutes of ordering and waiti…

Indeed. A lot of the junk food culture comes from agricultural subsidies, not just the obvious corn syrup. I recall (but can't find the link) a study showing that a really high proportion of supermarket products had traces of corn (even meat).

When you cross the border you see these effects more clearly. Here in brazil, for example, for most of my childhood McDonalds was an expensive-ish place people went out to eat in, and even today junk american-style chocolate bars cost way more than standard not-so-junky chocolate. With an exception for soda (which can be cheaper than bottled water in some places) junk food is not at all attractive if you don't actually have a lot of money (the standard no-money food around here is beans and rice, with maybe cheaper cuts of meat thrown in the beans or served with the food; junk food costs a lot more than twice that).

Re: Things Economists Agree On

#17

Post by WingForward » Sat, Oct 30, 2010, 2:04 AM UTC

1) Getting answers to collide when there's only two choices, Agree or Disagree, is simple, absurdly simple.

50% represents maximum dissension.

How many other questions were there? How did they coincide with the presented questions? What is the expected distribution if answers were assigned randomly?

2) A question that deals with global or national finance often can't be accurately stated in a single sentence. I look at, say, the minimum wage, or the sports franchise question, and I think, "It depends."

3) There's an assumption in the questions that contain "should". That assumption is that economists all share the same goals. They don't. The ones who do may agree about the methods to achieve it.

Re: Things Economists Agree On

#18

Post by msbarnett » Sat, Oct 30, 2010, 2:05 AM UTC

splat wrote: post #15

I find it rather strange that even predictions that should be fairly clear-cut and straightforward (e.g. "A ceiling on rents reduces the quantity and quality of housing available.") only get around 9/10 agreement. As a non-economist, I would have thought that a seemingly simple (and testable!) question like that would be like polling physicsts with the question "Does F = ma?". And I would sure hope that more than 93%…

That question is a tad bit more subjective than "F = ma" (an economist from a Marxist school of thought would probably disagree that is is entirely clear-cut), and it would depend entirely on the specific way it was asked and exactly what counted as an "agree".

Professionals will tend to hedge their answers when they can conceive of any kind of scenario that would contradict an absolute like "A ceiling on rents reduces the quantity and quality of housing available.". A ceiling of 2 trillion dollars/sq. foot would likely not impact on the quality or quantity of housing in the US, to make up a wild counter-claim off the top of my head.

Re: Things Economists Agree On

#19

Post by _delirium » Sat, Oct 30, 2010, 2:06 AM UTC

splat wrote: post #15

I find it rather strange that even predictions that should be fairly clear-cut and straightforward (e.g. "A ceiling on rents reduces the quantity and quality of housing available.") only get around 9/10 agreement. As a non-economist, I would have thought that a seemingly simple (and testable!) question like that would be like polling physicsts with the question "Does F = ma?". And I would sure hope that more than 93%…

Well, unlike with physical laws, economic "laws" rarely describe direct causal mechanisms, but rather generalizations about what happens when you poke a multi-agent system, whose behavior is often rather complex. It's hard to test, tests often throw up quirks, it's nearly impossible to control for all confounding variables, etc.

In the rent-control case, for example, here is one (paywalled and somewhat dated) dissenting view: http://www.springerlink.com/content/k75072652rkxut61/. Pointed out mostly as an example--- it's quite possible that particular paper is now obsolete and adequately responded to. It's a common approach to dissenting from economic conclusions, though: you admit that a particular widely held belief is true in a particular model, but then argue that the model doesn't sufficiently correspond to reality, e.g. because it doesn't incorporate certain important effects.

Re: Things Economists Agree On

#20

Post by grandalf » Sat, Oct 30, 2010, 2:08 AM UTC

splat wrote: post #15

I find it rather strange that even predictions that should be fairly clear-cut and straightforward (e.g. "A ceiling on rents reduces the quantity and quality of housing available.") only get around 9/10 agreement. As a non-economist, I would have thought that a seemingly simple (and testable!) question like that would be like polling physicsts with the question "Does F = ma?". And I would sure hope that more than 93%…

The 1/10 perspective makes a strong claim about the price elasticity of supply of housing. It would seem to be testable, but while it's easy to measure elasticity in a controlled environment, for something complex like the market for housing, doing so might entail some assumptions that 1/10 economists don't choose to get on board with.