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The worldly turn: A return to economics that studies the real world

aeon.co

11–20 of 29 posts

Re: The worldly turn: A return to economics that studies the real world

#11

The sections of this article which are descriptions of current work being done by several Clark medal winners are reasonably accurate and fair summaries. The rest is a complete mess written by someone who is uninformed at best. The discussion of tobacco taxes and the discussion of wages in the Premier League are both particularly bad. Please don't take it seriously as a description of what's going on in the field or…

I graduated with an econ BSc from a Russel Group University in the UK, it was definitely not made clear where and where not there was actual empirical evidence for the conclusions of the neoclassical modelling we were taught. The state of syllabi around the world is a total embarrassment.

I'd happily go even further and say that economics as a field is a total embarrassment

Re: The worldly turn: A return to economics that studies the real world

#12
He seems to create a lot of straw men and then claiming he has defied economics by showing those examples turned out wrong.

I am not an economist but I remember from the basic textbook that nobody actually knows the supply and demand curve. So his claims that economist predicted explicit values for tobacco seems unusual. Also his example of more poor people ending up smokers than rich people - does he think the numbers would be reversed if smoking would have remained cheaper? Also even if prices were increased via taxes, it doesn't mean demand could not also be increased for some other reasons? People don't smoke because they want to spend money, after all.

Minimum wage of course comes up all the time. Here in Germany (which is also mentioned in the article), I don't thin unemployment is measured in a very concise way, as it is also a political number. Politicians want to be able to say unemployment went down.

So there are lot of people who are not actually being counted in the official number, like if they are not actively seeking employment, or only doing side jobs. Minimum wage increases usually are also not that high. I think there might still be jobs lost, just not those that are being counted. An example would be a pensioner doing a side job to earn a little extra income. If her job falls away, she doesn't file for unemployment because she already is a pensioner. Student jobs might be another example.

I guess it is true that it is difficult to predict some things, but surely, if you can present a theory that is good at predicting, it would make a dent in economics? No need to declare classical economics silly and claim to be inventing a new kind of economics.

Re: The worldly turn: A return to economics that studies the real world

#13
Badness of the article aside much of the axioms that make up the foundations of Economics are simply not true imo. The bedrock of the field is that people act rationally. But they don’t. Firms do. And maybe groups of people do: but individuals don’t. Not always.

I always thought the field could use updating to reflect more of what we really see and not what the theory suggests we should see.

Re: The worldly turn: A return to economics that studies the real world

#14

The sections of this article which are descriptions of current work being done by several Clark medal winners are reasonably accurate and fair summaries. The rest is a complete mess written by someone who is uninformed at best. The discussion of tobacco taxes and the discussion of wages in the Premier League are both particularly bad. Please don't take it seriously as a description of what's going on in the field or…

Can you explain how it’s a complete mess? I have been interested in economics for a long time and as such read many published articles but I have a hard time actually applying it to anything in the real world. Often the majority of economists are completely wrong just look at recent inflation predictions. You don’t have to look hard to find the field is consistently far off the mark.

Re: The worldly turn: A return to economics that studies the real world

#15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I graduated with an econ BSc from a Russel Group University in the UK, it was definitely not made clear where and where not there was actual empirical evidence for the conclusions of the neoclassical modelling we were taught. The state of syllabi around the world is a total embarrassment.

I'd happily go even further and say that economics as a field is a total embarrassment

Its not a total embarrassment, its more akin to christian apologetics or academic study of lord of the rings.

That ia, clever and learned people with a rich, well documented history, studying a fantasy.

Re: The worldly turn: A return to economics that studies the real world

#16

This is a good article. But it's too kind to contemporary economics. Contemporary economics especially neoliberalism is simply a pseudo-scientific justification for crushing workers rights globally and maximizing profits for those at the very top. Economists told us for decades that wages are tied to productivity, when all the data points in the exact opposite direction. Economists told us that opening up developing…

> How's that going in 2022? It's brought hundreds of millions of people out of poverty [0], drastically increased their life expectancies [1], and significantly improved their chances of making it to adulthood [2]. For more, see https://www.gapminder.org . [0] https://www.gapminder.org/tools/#$model$markers$line$encodin... [1] https://www.gapminder.org/tools/#$model$markers$line$encodin... [2] https://www.gapminder.o…

If you're going to use those things as the yardstick for success, may I take a moment to point out that China has accomplished all that, much faster, on a much larger relative scale, via a distinctly non-neo-liberal economic system. (50x GDP/capita growth over the past 40 years, +13 years of life expectancy, a reduction in absolute poverty from 88% to 0.7%, etc, etc.)

But I generally don't see many Western economists singing their system's praises.

Re: The worldly turn: A return to economics that studies the real world

#17
post #9
post #7

"The law of supply and demand" is never going to fit everything the way the law of gravity does. It's a rough guideline that applies to artificial models better than it does to the real world. It seems like economists need to admit it when a minimum wage law don't have the effect they think it "should" instead of stubbornly insisting they're right. However, you can tell a "journalist" wrote this... >Isaiah Andrews, o…

> in physics you can do experiments quite easily, and in the social sciences and economics, you can't. Which is exactly why neither are actual science.

well, I wouldn't compare them to physics or chemistry, for sure.

Sometimes you have a natural experiment which may tell you something. But then, almost by definition, no one can replicate it.

Re: The worldly turn: A return to economics that studies the real world

#18

The sections of this article which are descriptions of current work being done by several Clark medal winners are reasonably accurate and fair summaries. The rest is a complete mess written by someone who is uninformed at best. The discussion of tobacco taxes and the discussion of wages in the Premier League are both particularly bad. Please don't take it seriously as a description of what's going on in the field or…

I'm slowly feeding a budding interest in economics and started with Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell. With all the stories and references, I take the basic principles as mostly scientific. However when I told someone with more background in economics, they made me feel as if I'm reading a heretical book that only tells half the story.

Do you have similar views on that book/author, or if not familiar - do you have any recommended books/courses?

I can't help but feel economics learning comes married to a politics, but it's not clear when reading.

Re: The worldly turn: A return to economics that studies the real world

#19
> First, employers in the US and Europe have reported that they can easily pass on minimum wage increases to customers. To ‘blackboard’ economists this makes no sense – after all, if customers were prepared to accept higher prices, the companies would have already tried to increase them

Wouldn't competition between businesses for those customers keep prices low than the max customers were willing to bear, and then a minimum wage just raise the min bar?

Re: The worldly turn: A return to economics that studies the real world

#20
post #18

The sections of this article which are descriptions of current work being done by several Clark medal winners are reasonably accurate and fair summaries. The rest is a complete mess written by someone who is uninformed at best. The discussion of tobacco taxes and the discussion of wages in the Premier League are both particularly bad. Please don't take it seriously as a description of what's going on in the field or…

I'm slowly feeding a budding interest in economics and started with Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell. With all the stories and references, I take the basic principles as mostly scientific. However when I told someone with more background in economics, they made me feel as if I'm reading a heretical book that only tells half the story. Do you have similar views on that book/author, or if not familiar - do you have any…

Haven’t read it so I can’t comment on it. Economists of a more conservative bent do praise the book, but that’s all I know about it.

Really any intro principles book should be fine for the basics. Mankiw is a popular choice. Wolfers and Stevenson is one I use for examples and class problems. The book my department uses is set by committee and because they give the students at our university a (very good) deal relative to competitors.

Economics does not need to come with any politics at the intro or any level, frankly.

In my class, I do criticize a lot of very stupid things DJT did as president when they intersect the material I am teaching, but I’m happy to note when Biden (who I happily voted for) does something I disagreed with.

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