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Danish government makes its new economic model open source

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Re: Danish government makes its new economic model open source

#101

Post by danuker »

dane-pgp wrote: post #96
danuker wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> UBI, which will also make all economic models obsolete too But how would you decide how much to give through UBI next year? How inflation will change in response? How many people will still be needed in jobs? You still need a model, because the world is changing, and a model helps you understand how.

Sure, you would want a model to aid decision-making, but if there is (initially) no data for how the economy will behave under a UBI and with 80% unemployment, for example, then all existing models might end up generating predictions or recommendations that don't help at all.

The model encodes some generalities that may still hold true, given that it was fit on a lot of scenarios, and a lot of brainpower went into it.

But sure, it might completely miss some novel phenomenon. It is up to the humans running the model to be aware of its limitations and accuracy.

In any case, the more heads thinking about the problem the better, and the model is an approximation of a lot of heads. And the equations can show why it thinks what it thinks.

Re: Danish government makes its new economic model open source

#105

Post by drran »

tomrod wrote: post #92
drran wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who will pay for this?

Many, with the benefit of a prosperous economy and stable polity.

I'm not interested to pay 15k in taxes to receive 5k back as UBI, regardless of economy or stability.

How much you plan to pay in taxes to support my UBI?

Re: Danish government makes its new economic model open source

#108

Post by viztor »

I read the comment about the unreliability of economics, however I do like to point one thing, most economical model fit well when the economy is doing ok or within a certain range of parameters, until something outside of those safe area happens. Think of 2008, and think of the economical impact of the pandemic. It's impossible to account for in prior models and thoughts as those are nonlinear events almost no one can predict. This is the thing with economy, we can only know a bit about our position and surroundings, but we have no way of knowing if we are in a local optimum, or if we are approaching a tipping point that invalidates all prior models. There are variables that don't matter until they reach a certain mass, there are metrics we simply can't find quantitive method to measure, let alone to predict. Economics is always messy, and with a lot of the classic thoughts proven wrong, we should be wary of any of the assumptions we make.

Re: Danish government makes its new economic model open source

#110

Post by MatthewMob »

mbar84 wrote: post #91
nautilius wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, if you would want to test if, say, a pair of shoes improves running performance, it's not enough to compare to peers without change, or the situation before the new shoes, but you will reject the study unless you also have a third group where you break people's legs? How would that be necessary?

UBI cannot be implemented unless somebody pays for it. It's necessarily redistributive. All existing experiments only look at one half of the equation. I think it's a fair question to ask what the effect will be on people who on net will pay more than before this system was introduced. Breaking peoples legs is not a prerequisite for others to run faster.

Of course not, there are a plethora of factors that would alter the effectiveness of UBI, looking at it so simply and then rejecting it outright is dishonest.

Money would majorly come from those who have the greater means to pay larger amounts into the system, and on the hypothesis that bettering the material conditions of those in the lower and middle class will necessarily lead to increasing productivity and thus (and 'thus' is a large leap) greater general income that can partly be paid back into the system in a cycle.

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