Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Things Economists Agree On

gregmankiw.blogspot.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 131 posts

Re: Things Economists Agree On

#81

Post by kiba »

wazoox wrote: post #74
kiba wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Samuelson have thought that the Soviet economy would keep growing and surpass the US's GDP. Boy, he was wrong. Then the Soviet collapses in the 1990 or so. Others, like the Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises predicted the death of the Soviet Union and he has dealt with Red Vienna. He also thought that soviet style economy wouldn't work.

One random good prediction proves nothing, unfortunately. I tend to believe that Ricardo's comparative advantage and similar economic principles established for more than 150 years are solid enough to be relied upon when dealing with a relatively large markets; I'd go with HilbertSpace about the global macroeconomic BS, however. I'm pretty sure that global markets are too complex to be described by any current model.…

One random good prediction proves nothing, unfortunately. I tend to believe that Ricardo's comparative advantage and similar economic principles established for more than 150 years are solid enough to be relied upon when dealing with a relatively large markets; I'd go with HilbertSpace about the global macroeconomic BS, however. I'm pretty sure that global markets are too complex to be described by any current model.

I think one of the epistemological problem with economics is that it's almost impossible to run experiments(except maybe college kids experiments), and it would probably be irresponsible to run experiments on whole nations. That why some economists approach it by using entirely deductive logic as a mean of study.

Re: Things Economists Agree On

#82

Post by indiejade »

_delirium wrote: post #19
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) dissent…

A ceiling on rents reduces the quantity and quality of housing available. (93%)

Counterpoint: surprising to me is the number of economists who "agree" with this statement.

First of all, it does not compute, intuitively, to me as a logical "AND" statement. "Quantity" and "quality" are two completely different things.

"Quality of housing" would be a function of renting vs. owning status (e.g. paying rent vs. paying a mortgage), further subjected to the degree of separation between the tenant and the actual mortgage/title holder. "Quantity of housing" would be a function of information asymmetry between "buyers" and "sellers", and obviously price (determined by the kind of information asymmetry).

Wikipedia has a pretty good summary / history about the origin of rent control: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent_control

Re: Things Economists Agree On

#83

Post by magice »

Last time I checked, economics was still considered "scientific." That means we should not be operating on consensus basis, but proof. What is the scientific model of these things that economists agree on? Have them be checked against history? Have them predicted future accurately? Have we been able explained whatever deviation they have with reality?

Until such model exists, consensus means nothing but politics. Maybe, just maybe, we should start considering demote economics status to "pseudo-science." Last time I check, fortune tellers also agree on shit, you know.

Re: Things Economists Agree On

#84

Post by hxa7241 »

dstorrs wrote: post #30
kiujhgbnj wrote: post #24

Interesting that all economists seem to be pro-business, anti-tax, anti-worker rights. You would almost think that most economists worked at banks or for university business schools. In other research naval officers believe in a larger navy with lots of ships

Yep, many economists do work for those institutions. And yep, all of them have /some/ particular axe to grind (everyone does -- I do, you do, etc). That doesn't mean that what they're saying isn't correct. - Businesses are, in fact, what generates most of the wealth and innovation in a country - Taxes, whether personal or corporate, are not economically efficient. Government can be compared to an electrical grid -- t…

> That doesn't mean that what they're saying isn't correct.

But it can mean they are only seeing one small area of what is possibly correct. There could be many other correct things out there, that might be even better, but their view is constrained.

Re: Things Economists Agree On

#85

Post by wazoox »

kiba wrote: post #81
wazoox wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One random good prediction proves nothing, unfortunately. I tend to believe that Ricardo's comparative advantage and similar economic principles established for more than 150 years are solid enough to be relied upon when dealing with a relatively large markets; I'd go with HilbertSpace about the global macroeconomic BS, however. I'm pretty sure that global markets are too complex to be described by any current model.…

One random good prediction proves nothing, unfortunately. I tend to believe that Ricardo's comparative advantage and similar economic principles established for more than 150 years are solid enough to be relied upon when dealing with a relatively large markets; I'd go with HilbertSpace about the global macroeconomic BS, however. I'm pretty sure that global markets are too complex to be described by any current model.…

> I think one of the epistemological problem with economics is that it's almost impossible to run experiments[...]

It's also true of cosmology, though cosmological errors won't ruin people lives :) If you haven't read "the shock doctrine", it states that actually there was many economic experiments, in Chile and other countries, usually for the worse... Well USSR made some large scale experiments too, from 1917 to 1921, then 1921 to 1927.

Re: Things Economists Agree On

#86

Post by fredex »

HilbertSpace wrote: post #53

Here's one broad way Mankiw and company are going wrong. I start with three preliminary points and then point to the going wrong: (1) They have physics envy . In particular, they want to sit in a small, dark, closed room and with just pure thought , with little to no contact with any real economy, come up with some economics version of Newton's second law F = ma or Einstein's result in special relativity E = mc^2. No…

"Except for some points of information, biomedical, and materials technology, it's not clear that our standard of living is as high now."

This is probably the most uninformed, illogical, and inept points I've ever read on HN. Third-world children are now texting their friends on mobile phones, instead of dying of hunger. You have no idea what it was like growing up in the 50s. Do you even know what "economic growth" even means? Do you understand how many consecutive periods of growth our economy has had?

Unbelievable.

Re: Things Economists Agree On

#87

Post by fredex »

magice wrote: post #83

Last time I checked, economics was still considered "scientific." That means we should not be operating on consensus basis, but proof. What is the scientific model of these things that economists agree on? Have them be checked against history? Have them predicted future accurately? Have we been able explained whatever deviation they have with reality? Until such model exists, consensus means nothing but politics. May…

"consensus means nothing but politics"

Actually, why don't you do this if you think it's all about politics. Get your favorite politician, see who their economic advisers are, then understand their views. Mankiw stated economic points that are accepted by a wide political spectrum.

Re: Things Economists Agree On

#88

Post by jboydyhacker »

#4 is a bit misleading. It states "Fiscal policy (e.g., tax cut and/or government expenditure increase) has a significant stimulative impact on a less than fully employed economy. (90%)".

While that sounds harmless, a lot of people will take that item and extrapolate it to our current situation and say the correct policy response is to stimulate the economy with fiscal policy. That has to be right since 90% of economists agree right? Well, what happens if you add a little context to the quote and add the text "with high levels of debt as a share of GDP". That 90% number would likely come down massively most likely skewed by biases not related to economic theory.

In short, the quote is very misleading if you are trying to use it as a guide to our current mess. What does this imply the right policy response for us is now?:

We have to make major cuts in areas of excess that have little stimulative impact. This means cutting back on government pensions, entitlement reform, and cutting things like 9/11 contracts that don't provide any real increase in safety. It means we can also strategically spend in areas that have been neglected the last 10 years like an energy grid for a more stable energy policy, alternatives to petroleum based fuels, a modernized air traffic control system and infrastructure.

At a macro level this means net spending decreases in very sensitive areas like entitlements but also strategic increases that make our country more able to compete like education, energy independence and infrastructure.

Re: Things Economists Agree On

#89

Post by [deleted] »

joelmichael wrote: post #38
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%…

There are people who think the Earth is flat, but they aren't called physicists; yet Marxists are still called economists.

[deleted]

Re: Things Economists Agree On

#90

Post by [deleted] »

kiujhgbnj wrote: post #24

Interesting that all economists seem to be pro-business, anti-tax, anti-worker rights. You would almost think that most economists worked at banks or for university business schools. In other research naval officers believe in a larger navy with lots of ships

[deleted]
Post reply on HN