Earlier quoted context omitted.
A few points: (1) Many if not most economists are empirical. Recent John Bates Clark medals---a good reflection of what academic economists think is the best work being done right now---have gone to economists doing empirical work. Recent examples include what works for development (evaluated with large randomized controlled trials), what are the causes of growing income inequality, how should we structure auctions e…
GDP / capita is a pretty meaningless metric if you consider that wealth is a lot more concentrated these days.
Things Economists Agree On
111–120 of 131 posts
Re: Things Economists Agree On
#112Earlier quoted context omitted.
A few points: (1) Many if not most economists are empirical. Recent John Bates Clark medals---a good reflection of what academic economists think is the best work being done right now---have gone to economists doing empirical work. Recent examples include what works for development (evaluated with large randomized controlled trials), what are the causes of growing income inequality, how should we structure auctions e…
In response to point 5. Is it clear that per capita GDP is a good measure of standard of living? Adjusted median income has not risen much with GDP. Do you have an argument for why standard of living should be evaluated as a mean instead of a median? http://www.stanford.edu/class/polisci120a/immigration/Median...
Yes. This is something else virtually every economist will agree on. ACists, neoclassical, keynesian, Chicago, Austrian, I'm sure there are other major schools I'm forgetting, but this is a very accepted measure of standard of living in the field of economics.
Re: Things Economists Agree On
#113Earlier quoted context omitted.
GDP / capita is a pretty meaningless metric if you consider that wealth is a lot more concentrated these days.
Income is more concentrated today compared to the post-war period, but I don't think that makes the mean meaningless---it depends upon how much weight you put on a dollar held by different parts of the distribution. That being said, I think you'd be hard pressed to show that any part of the income distribution is worse-off in real terms than they were in 1950. Incidentally, we only know about these changes in the inc…
Re: Things Economists Agree On
#114Earlier 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.…
> 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 19…
Re: Things Economists Agree On
#115Here'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…
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economics/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Memorial_Prize_in_Economi...
Re: Things Economists Agree On
#116Earlier quoted context omitted.
In response to point 5. Is it clear that per capita GDP is a good measure of standard of living? Adjusted median income has not risen much with GDP. Do you have an argument for why standard of living should be evaluated as a mean instead of a median? http://www.stanford.edu/class/polisci120a/immigration/Median...
> Is it clear that per capita GDP is a good measure of standard of living? Yes. This is something else virtually every economist will agree on. ACists, neoclassical, keynesian, Chicago, Austrian, I'm sure there are other major schools I'm forgetting, but this is a very accepted measure of standard of living in the field of economics.
A statement which only help to make his point about economists being ignorant crocks. GDP is heavily doubted as a good measure of standard of living in all other social sciences.
Examples of what the GDP measure fails to take into account: ecological sustainability, wealth distribution, non-market transactions, underground economy, non-monetary economy, subsistence economy, quality improvements and inclusion of new products, what is being produced, externalities, sustainability, etc, etc...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gross_domestic_product#Limitati...
Re: Things Economists Agree On
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
GDP / capita is a pretty meaningless metric if you consider that wealth is a lot more concentrated these days.
Could you suggest better metric than GDP per capita?
Genuine progress indicator (GPI)
Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare (ISEW)
Gross national happiness (GNH)
The Gini coefficient
Just to name a few. None of which is perfect, but at least better than the GDP when it comes to actually saying something about the quality and state of an economy.
Re: Things Economists Agree On
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Is it clear that per capita GDP is a good measure of standard of living? Yes. This is something else virtually every economist will agree on. ACists, neoclassical, keynesian, Chicago, Austrian, I'm sure there are other major schools I'm forgetting, but this is a very accepted measure of standard of living in the field of economics.
> Yes. This is something else virtually every economist will agree on. A statement which only help to make his point about economists being ignorant crocks. GDP is heavily doubted as a good measure of standard of living in all other social sciences. Examples of what the GDP measure fails to take into account: ecological sustainability, wealth distribution, non-market transactions, underground economy, non-monetary ec…
You won't find an economist (or any other person person) in the world that thinks GDP exhaustively covers every aspect of an economy and how it provides a standard of living.
What you will find is that they all agree GDP is the best available measure to determine a standard of living that is derived from some level of economic production.
If GDP is a terrible metric for determining standard of living, I'd like to know why it is still the most often used metric (by economists and non-economists alike) and a coherent argument for some alternative standard.
Any satisfaction based metric means that the majority of the developed world is doing something wrong -- numerous happiness studies show indigenous peoples often have a higher "happiness index" than people in the developed world.
Environmental based metrics have their own problems because environmental benefits and harms are not internalized by nations.
Income distribution based metrics aren't acceptable because the harms of great income distribution disparity are not easily mapped and are rarely agreed upon.
The only thing that might make sense is a metric based on life expectancy and education (Human development index from your Wikipedia link), but even that is problematic. Research created free-riding, regardless of patents.
The second a US company makes a drug that eliminates cancer, any lab that gets their hand on the drug can reverse engineer it with ease. The however many millions of dollars that went into building it (and become a function of its cost) are undercut by countries/people that do not respect the intellectual property rights of such a patent.
The outlay of spending becomes highly concentrated while the company doesn't see the returns that it expects. The drug copier gets the benefits of the hundreds of millions in R&D expenditure while only spending a few extra days of a scientists time.
Re: Things Economists Agree On
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
Income is more concentrated today compared to the post-war period, but I don't think that makes the mean meaningless---it depends upon how much weight you put on a dollar held by different parts of the distribution. That being said, I think you'd be hard pressed to show that any part of the income distribution is worse-off in real terms than they were in 1950. Incidentally, we only know about these changes in the inc…
I agree with you on the assumption that most likely all parts of the income distribution are better of today compared to the 50's -- on absolute terms. But _relative_ wealth becomes an important metric as soon as basic needs -- food, shelter etc. -- are satisfied.
Re: Things Economists Agree On
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
Could you suggest better metric than GDP per capita?
Human development index (HDI) Genuine progress indicator (GPI) Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare (ISEW) Gross national happiness (GNH) The Gini coefficient Just to name a few. None of which is perfect, but at least better than the GDP when it comes to actually saying something about the quality and state of an economy.
Why do I care how much someone else has?