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Incentives in economics are wrong, but how?

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Re: Incentives in economics are wrong, but how?

#61

Post by kapuasuite »

whimsicalism wrote: post #49
kapuasuite wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Like giving a $200k/yr tech worker $6k in stimmy checks? There are broad benefits to having an educated society, this rhetoric about 'elite overproduction' has classist/snobbish undertones, in my view.

Tax dollars that go to universities for one reason or another are tax dollars that cannot be spent on healthcare - tax dollars that can't be collected from tax exempt institutions (like almost all universities) are tax dollars that can't be spent on maintaining infrastructure. The possibilities are endless. The questions isn't whether or not education is "good", because it obviously is, it's whether the level of resources devoted to it can be spent to better effect elsewhere, which is probably true.

Re: Incentives in economics are wrong, but how?

#62

Post by Apocryphon »

whimsicalism wrote: post #56
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The humanities also include law, politics, and economics [1]. What percentage of laywers, politicians, and economists are worth more than STEM graduates? How much relative power does each sector have? [1] Technically a social science, certainly not a hardcore STEM subject.

Economics is not in the humanities, political science is not in the humanities, and law is not typically considered in the humanities. It kinda sounds like you don't know what the humanities are.

The humanities, liberal arts, and social sciences are usually lumped together as "not-STEM".

Re: Incentives in economics are wrong, but how?

#63

Post by kapuasuite »

tartoran wrote: post #57
kapuasuite wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Yes but there are tradeoffs everywhere. I'd look at the big picture instead. Are we better off than, say, 100 years ago?

Yes, there are tradeoffs anywhere - which means we should rationally assess what we're putting into education and whether at least some of those resources can be put to better use in other ways.

Re: Incentives in economics are wrong, but how?

#64

Post by paulpauper »

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?

You have to look at relative frequency, median wages. A competent coder can made a solid 6 figures.But it requires top .001% of music or athletic ability to make money as a pro. Just being very good at football may be enough to letter but not to join the NFL. Same for writing or acting. World famous actors or writers can make tens of millions of dollars at their craft, but some unknown guy who join #10 at Facebook , Airbnb, or coinbase can easily be worth as much or more.

Re: Incentives in economics are wrong, but how?

#65

Post by paulpauper »

BeFlatXIII wrote: post #42
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.

A distinction should be drawn between “this entire field is useless” and “the current discussions in this field are wankery”. IMO, STEMlordery stems from students surmising—correctly or not—that their humanities professor’s publications are wankery and then falsely assuming that the entire field is hokey junk. Accrediting boards who demand proof that all departments produce relevant scholarly work are also to blame f…

I have observed that purported STEMlordery is more of myth than reality, or a caricature created by the media. I have found that on many stem-centric communities that people employed in STEM have great respect for the humanities, such as history, philosophy, or writing. Look at how many non-STEM articles get voted to the top of hacker news, such as articles about literature or philosophy.

Re: Incentives in economics are wrong, but how?

#66

Post by rootusrootus »

nohuck13 wrote: post #30

We're walking into the middle of an argument that's been going on for a while here. "Economic(s) imperialism" is the tendency of economists to write papers topics outside traditional economics. While the people in (say) the sociology department seem to have to confine themselves to sociology. As Tyler Cowen writes on Marginal Revolution [1] quoted by Kevin Munger in the piece this piece is responding to: " - Mammogra…

One of my favorite podcasts is ostensibly economics, but I've noticed that the topics tend to really be only tangentially related to economics. What they really seem to be are statisticians, not economists particularly.

Re: Incentives in economics are wrong, but how?

#67

Post by whimsicalism »

kapuasuite wrote: post #61
whimsicalism wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like giving a $200k/yr tech worker $6k in stimmy checks? There are broad benefits to having an educated society, this rhetoric about 'elite overproduction' has classist/snobbish undertones, in my view.

Tax dollars that go to universities for one reason or another are tax dollars that cannot be spent on healthcare - tax dollars that can't be collected from tax exempt institutions (like almost all universities) are tax dollars that can't be spent on maintaining infrastructure. The possibilities are endless. The questions isn't whether or not education is "good", because it obviously is, it's whether the level of reso…

> which is probably true.

Hm, is it? My guess is that government spending on college probably is probably a net positive investment in terms of revenue for the govt due to downstream growth, likely also lowers the cost to do other things in industry.

There is extensive evidence that further public spending on healthcare does not have a size-able impact on outcomes, unfortunately. [0]

> the level of resources devoted to it can be spent to better effect elsewhere

But why the focus on education? Why not increase, say, inheritance taxation and then use it to fund those additional things? Couldn't we make better use of the resources our society devotes towards making sure that the kids of rich parents are also rich?

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAND_Health_Insurance_Experime... You really can't beat social science research like this and the followup in 2010.

Re: Incentives in economics are wrong, but how?

#68

Post by fallingknife »

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…

Any major that ends in "studies"

Re: Incentives in economics are wrong, but how?

#69

Post by Aunche »

kapuasuite wrote: post #40
tartoran wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

I think the better question is why exactly are we pouring so many resources into higher education? Most of my classes were taught by lecturers making at best $80 an hour teaching a class of a hundred. The real work is done by the TAs who make at best $15 an hour. Where is the rest of the money going to?

Re: Incentives in economics are wrong, but how?

#70

Post by fallingknife »

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.

I think the problem is that non-STEM classes have been dumbed down to the point where they just aren't on the same level. You see lots of failed science majors in English class, but no failed English majors in differential equations class. But why not? Writing is hard, and if you had to be as good of a writer to be an English major as you do at math to be a math major, lots of people would fail out of that too. But they don't because those classes are easy. I've never actually heard anybody argue that the subject matter isn't worthy.
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