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Incentives in economics are wrong, but how?

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Re: Incentives in economics are wrong, but how?

#31

Post by distribot »

whimsicalism wrote: post #28
greenail wrote: post #14

Maybe the incentives for universities are all wrong. In the early 1900's only 4% of the US went to university. There ended up being a big push to get more people into college with the assumption that it would benefit society. Eventually we ended up with a notion that everyone should go to college and this has been buttressed with government support but what if this idea is wrong? What if the incentives created lots o…

> Have we reached a state of elite-overproduction? I'm very curious about this line of thought, as it seems to have become very popular in the blogospher over the past year or two. What are the consequences of "elite overproduction"? I'm curious what the implications of this line of thought are. Generally, I think more education is better than less - I am wrong to think that? My personal hypothesis is that this fear…

I think this elite notion is over-simplified and inaccurate. It suggests that some significant portion of students are at these kind of "walled garden", elite institutions where students become disconnected from the struggles of "real people".

80% of students go to a school where over half of applicants are accepted. Yes, these schools definitely are centers of, frankly, liberal idealism and free-spiritedness. But I think that would be the case in any system where young people are pretty unsupervised and have lots of time to read and study (or party). In my experience though, they aren't factories for elites in the common sense of that word. They're just a reflection of how you need much more training to be competitive in the job market today.

https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2019/04/harvar...

Re: Incentives in economics are wrong, but how?

#32

Post by bregma »

thebean11 wrote: post #16
greenail wrote: post #14

Maybe the incentives for universities are all wrong. In the early 1900's only 4% of the US went to university. There ended up being a big push to get more people into college with the assumption that it would benefit society. Eventually we ended up with a notion that everyone should go to college and this has been buttressed with government support but what if this idea is wrong? What if the incentives created lots o…

Agree with your larger point but: > This may show up as lots of superfluous/unreproducible papers and journals many not even based on the scientific method. seems very STEM-centric. It sounds like you're saying academia outside of the realm of science is useless which I completely disagree with.

But everyone knows you can only get rich by working in STEM. Have you ever heard of a musician worth millions? Or a writer? Or an actor? Or an athlete? Fashion designer?

Re: Incentives in economics are wrong, but how?

#33

Post by ta1234567890 »

distribot wrote: post #31
whimsicalism wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Have we reached a state of elite-overproduction? I'm very curious about this line of thought, as it seems to have become very popular in the blogospher over the past year or two. What are the consequences of "elite overproduction"? I'm curious what the implications of this line of thought are. Generally, I think more education is better than less - I am wrong to think that? My personal hypothesis is that this fear…

I think this elite notion is over-simplified and inaccurate. It suggests that some significant portion of students are at these kind of "walled garden", elite institutions where students become disconnected from the struggles of "real people". 80% of students go to a school where over half of applicants are accepted. Yes, these schools definitely are centers of, frankly, liberal idealism and free-spiritedness. But I…

Not OP. My interpretation is that society doesn’t really need as many university degrees as we are producing. Not because of competition but because not all jobs require a college degree, and ideally we should be increasing the pay of those jobs.

It might be better to adopt a model similar to the German or Swiss, in which people follow different tracks depending on their skills and interests, and not everyone goes to college, instead a lot of people go to trades schools. Of course for that to work in the US a huge societal change would need to happen first or alongside.

Re: Incentives in economics are wrong, but how?

#34

Post by eyeundersand »

seibelj wrote: post #13
eyeundersand wrote: post #7

> We should stop trying to pay for good work, and instead, try to hire people who like doing good work and damn the pay. This is in line with the traditional folk wisdom of Cambridge: “hire good people and let them get on with it”. > Lastly, to make the economists less greedy, they should be paid less. Ha, I needed a good chuckle in the morning. I'll be damned if I accept a job where they except high-quality work for…

The moment any economic argument is made that relies on human altruism is the moment it should be rejected. Some people may act altruistic some of the time, but in aggregate people refuse to be scammed to help the “greater good”.

Curiously, most econ folks seem to miss this. More likely: they conveniently ignore it when it suits their ends or when writing opinionated pieces after they've "made it".

Re: Incentives in economics are wrong, but how?

#35

Post by michaelt »

whimsicalism wrote: post #28
greenail wrote: post #14

Maybe the incentives for universities are all wrong. In the early 1900's only 4% of the US went to university. There ended up being a big push to get more people into college with the assumption that it would benefit society. Eventually we ended up with a notion that everyone should go to college and this has been buttressed with government support but what if this idea is wrong? What if the incentives created lots o…

> Have we reached a state of elite-overproduction? I'm very curious about this line of thought, as it seems to have become very popular in the blogospher over the past year or two. What are the consequences of "elite overproduction"? I'm curious what the implications of this line of thought are. Generally, I think more education is better than less - I am wrong to think that? My personal hypothesis is that this fear…

> What are the consequences of "elite overproduction"?

Underemployment, leading to...

Long term student debts, leading to...

Fewer people starting families

Re: Incentives in economics are wrong, but how?

#36

Post by tartoran »

greenail wrote: post #14

Maybe the incentives for universities are all wrong. In the early 1900's only 4% of the US went to university. There ended up being a big push to get more people into college with the assumption that it would benefit society. Eventually we ended up with a notion that everyone should go to college and this has been buttressed with government support but what if this idea is wrong? What if the incentives created lots o…

> Have we reached a state of elite-overproduction?

I don't see that as a bad thing. Of course they won't be elites when overproduced but its output, when looking at the big picture, will be positive. If you're so with your view why stop at universities then? Why educate the masses at all? Why not have classes of educated and uneducated people?

Re: Incentives in economics are wrong, but how?

#37

Post by Game_Ender »

bregma wrote: post #32
thebean11 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree with your larger point but: > This may show up as lots of superfluous/unreproducible papers and journals many not even based on the scientific method. seems very STEM-centric. It sounds like you're saying academia outside of the realm of science is useless which I completely disagree with.

But everyone knows you can only get rich by working in STEM. Have you ever heard of a musician worth millions? Or a writer? Or an actor? Or an athlete? Fashion designer?

What percentage of writers, athletes, actors, or musicians are worth millions? Compare that to the number of STEM graduates.

It’s not that you cannot, it’t about the likelihood.

Re: Incentives in economics are wrong, but how?

#38

Post by albatruss »

deertick1 wrote: post #24
thebean11 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree with your larger point but: > This may show up as lots of superfluous/unreproducible papers and journals many not even based on the scientific method. seems very STEM-centric. It sounds like you're saying academia outside of the realm of science is useless which I completely disagree with.

Not OP, but would like to say : I don't think science outside of stem is useless, but it is fundamentally different and fundentally less reliable/reproducible. In terms of reliability and rigor, it seems to go about like : Math -> computer science -> physics/chemistry -> biology -> everything else. As you continue, you must ignore more independent variables to conduct an experiment. By the time you get to social scie…

Something important to understand is that the hard sciences are more rigorous, but that's because they're easier to model than what the social sciences have to deal with. The naming is confusing.

Re: Incentives in economics are wrong, but how?

#39

Post by burnished »

thebean11 wrote: post #16
greenail wrote: post #14

Maybe the incentives for universities are all wrong. In the early 1900's only 4% of the US went to university. There ended up being a big push to get more people into college with the assumption that it would benefit society. Eventually we ended up with a notion that everyone should go to college and this has been buttressed with government support but what if this idea is wrong? What if the incentives created lots o…

Agree with your larger point but: > This may show up as lots of superfluous/unreproducible papers and journals many not even based on the scientific method. seems very STEM-centric. It sounds like you're saying academia outside of the realm of science is useless which I completely disagree with.

nah, this is a huge problem in STEM fields

Re: Incentives in economics are wrong, but how?

#40

Post by kapuasuite »

tartoran wrote: post #36
greenail wrote: post #14

Maybe the incentives for universities are all wrong. In the early 1900's only 4% of the US went to university. There ended up being a big push to get more people into college with the assumption that it would benefit society. Eventually we ended up with a notion that everyone should go to college and this has been buttressed with government support but what if this idea is wrong? What if the incentives created lots o…

> Have we reached a state of elite-overproduction? I don't see that as a bad thing. Of course they won't be elites when overproduced but its output, when looking at the big picture, will be positive. If you're so with your view why stop at universities then? Why educate the masses at all? Why not have classes of educated and uneducated people?

There are tradeoffs, though - the resources that are poured into higher education are resources that cannot be spent on other vital things.
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