If anyone wants to dive deeper into Piketty’s work Just check out his website and lecture slides.
Why Are Economists Giving Piketty the Cold Shoulder? (2017)
61–70 of 143 posts
Re: Why Are Economists Giving Piketty the Cold Shoulder? (2017)
#62Also wanted to add- Piketty has and continues to focus on data collection. We should be thankful people are out there doing tough work like this so we can all make more informed decisions- even if we come to different conclusions.
Re: Why Are Economists Giving Piketty the Cold Shoulder? (2017)
#63Because, "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!". Economists' careers as receivers of grants, policy advisors, members of prestigious think tanks and organizations, and pundits, depends on being good at promoting whatever aligns with the elite's interests. The scientific parts of economics are merely applied math (including game theory), and quite…
This comment manages to mix some elitist contempt of the arts with a whiff of conspiracy theory, while not saying anything of substance about Piketty’s work. Well done!
Arts? Economics is more of a religion than a science.
Re: Why Are Economists Giving Piketty the Cold Shoulder? (2017)
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's outright stupid to pin the blame on what you perceive to be a problem on a single academic paper, even if it was authored by outstanding academics such as Reinhart or Rogoff. It's even stupider to argue that scientists should be fired for publishing a paper that goes against your political values.
> even if it was authored by outstanding academics such as Reinhart or Rogoff https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority > argue that scientists should be fired for publishing a paper that goes against your political values https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man
It is not an argument from authority. It's a statement of fact that both authors have published a very long body of work including very high-value contributions to science, and they are not suddenly incompetent idiots just because they've published a paper that a random guy on the interned perceives as being politically inconvenient.
And the OP quite literally argued the scientists who authored the paper should be forced out of their job just because they published an academic paper that he found to be politically inconvenient, which is sheer lunacy.
Re: Why Are Economists Giving Piketty the Cold Shoulder? (2017)
#65Here's a thorough and interesting critique by another controversial (haha) economist, Y. Varoufakis[1].
Re: Why Are Economists Giving Piketty the Cold Shoulder? (2017)
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
Populism is a major problem, and one which is based on unscrupulous politicians taking advantage of the ignorance and prejudice while promissing unrealisting and outright impossible solutions to problems that they missrepresent and even invent. And that has absolutely zero to do with science in general and economic models in particular. Time and again we see populist politicians fanning up the masses with anti-capita…
It relates to economic models insofar as said models are used to justify the persistence of certain inequalities in society. The existence of these inequalities can then be exploited by populists in their rhetoric.
> It relates to economic models insofar as said models are used to justify the persistence of certain inequalities in society.
Not quite. Models only explain relationships between parameters.
Moreover, inequality is a meaningless concept that is the posterchild of how the goalpost is kept moving by populist politicians. It's meaningless in its definition, as it is kept very maleable to fit the argument, and it's meaningless in the conclusion, as there is no problem in having someome earning more than his neighbor.
Re: Why Are Economists Giving Piketty the Cold Shoulder? (2017)
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
This comment manages to mix some elitist contempt of the arts with a whiff of conspiracy theory, while not saying anything of substance about Piketty’s work. Well done!
Thanks. You've managed to be personally insulting without adding anything of substance, to my comment, Piketty's work, or to the general question of why economists would shun it. I've particularly enjoyed the "elitist contempt of the arts" part (whatever that means, since "contempt of the arts" is usually base, not elitist, not to mention the fact that I don't mention "the arts" at all), and the thought-stopper accus…
I think you'd agree with me that the problems with post WWII "social science", "political science", "psychology", "architecture" are precisely that they're trying to ape the physical sciences and not just be art.
And this is utterly true of Economics more than anything. And actually while a lot of arts have been pulling themselves back from that rat hole economics just keeps digging deeper.
Re: Why Are Economists Giving Piketty the Cold Shoulder? (2017)
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
Populism is a major problem, and one which is based on unscrupulous politicians taking advantage of the ignorance and prejudice while promissing unrealisting and outright impossible solutions to problems that they missrepresent and even invent. And that has absolutely zero to do with science in general and economic models in particular. Time and again we see populist politicians fanning up the masses with anti-capita…
Thing is populists tactics wouldn't get as much traction if the prejudice was not as bad, or worsening in the first place. Populism starts as a natural consequence of misery and lack of education, then becomes a cause that keeps reinforcing itself until the guillotine moment. Solving the populism issue means tackling the root issues it feeds from first.
> Thing is populists tactics wouldn't get as much traction if the prejudice was not as bad, or worsening in the first place.
The problem is that prejudice is also invented and disseminated by these unscrupulous politicians with their populist rhetoric. We see that in any extreme cormer of the political spectrum, whether its anti-capitalist socialists or racial supremacists. History is packed with examples where totalitarian regimes outright negate science to push their absurd populist rhetoric.
Re: Why Are Economists Giving Piketty the Cold Shoulder? (2017)
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have some problems with that same quote. The "disproportionate price appreciation of housing and the land it sits on" seems to me to be primarily a factor only in some (maybe most) large cities; outside those cities, price appreciation, perhaps excessive price appreciation, has occurred, but it's nothing like that in those few cities. My feeling is that, sure, the effect of real estate prices are large in real term…
But then you have to ask yourself why this surge in demand for real estate in urban areas hasn't been met by a corresponding surge in supply? Why aren't developers building new apartment complexes as fast as they can to cash in? The answer is primary that regulation by local governments prevents them from doing that thereby keeping real estate prices high.
Space is limited, demand is not. Physical reality trumps economic wish-thinking every time. Most of the time, the lack of space is the root problem, not some governmental boogeyman.
Re: Why Are Economists Giving Piketty the Cold Shoulder? (2017)
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
To an extent, I suspect you're right. I further suspect that economists, as a field, will continue to claim that their models, metrics, theories, and policy advice are good, while complaining about the inexplicable rise of populism, right up until somebody sets up a guillotine in front of Goldman-Sachs. (Populism is easy to explain: the peasants are revolting.)
Populism is a major problem, and one which is based on unscrupulous politicians taking advantage of the ignorance and prejudice while promissing unrealisting and outright impossible solutions to problems that they missrepresent and even invent. And that has absolutely zero to do with science in general and economic models in particular. Time and again we see populist politicians fanning up the masses with anti-capita…
This is all true. I would also add to this as a cause the trend of media outlets publishing a larger proportion of populist and outrage -driven content than they used to, which I suspect is a reaction to the new attention-driven business models that news outlets rely on these days.