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The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2025

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Re: The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2025

#181

Post by astrange »

jlhawn wrote: post #105
Maxion wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A park will generate less revenue than an apartment building, a sports complex, or a cafe. Not all value is quantifiable in USD.

this isn't necessarily true. While it generates less direct revenue, it increases nearby land value in two ways: 1) business activity which would have taken place on that parcel "overflows" to nearby parcels, ie, the demand for those other land uses doesn't go away and increases prices in the surrounding area. 2) the park provides real value to its users and access to that value also increases nearby ground rents.

Also, it's possible to have businesses in a park (rented sports fields, coffee stands etc). I know a park nearby with a pottery studio in it.

Generally Americans don't think of this because they think public services "shouldn't try to make money" and interpret this as they need to be designed to lose money as hard as possible. So public transit stations have no vending machines and activists are constantly trying to ban them from charging fares.

Re: The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2025

#182

Post by lanfeust6 »

mallowfram wrote: post #99
lanfeust6 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As a post-symbolic, post-causal thinker (not a "socialist" which is also political nonsense) That tells me nothing about your perspective. Your ideology is as identifiable as anyone else's and you have to do politics like anyone else. > economics is purely the translation to settlement coercion for the production of Myth of the State/center-worshipping It's not up to you. Economics has a definition. > richest citiz…

Wealth is arbitrary post settlement. Show me a currency from 700AD still traded on a regulated market. In that sense, wealth is a decadent category the West will be destroyed by, look at the current state of oligarchy, particularly tech. There's little if any ecological parity in these displays of wealth and extraction status. My ideology is the replacement of symbols with measurement. I have no relationship with pol…

> Wealth is arbitrary post settlement. Show me a currency from 700AD still traded on a regulated market. In that sense, wealth is a decadent category the West will be destroyed by, look at the current state of oligarchy, particularly tech. There's little if any ecological parity in these displays of wealth and extraction status.

Is this meant to be post-modern? Whatever you feel about wealth, wealthier citizens overall are happier and have a better quality of life. Do you think people are clamouring to immigrate to the West for the weather?

> I have no relationship with politics

LMFAO. Dress it up all you want. You're either ideological or you aren't, you can't have your cake and eat it too. You're free to criticize Capitalism and/or Liberalism, but in doing so you can't pretend you believe in nothing that can be defined in political terms.

> Rosenberg quote

Economics doesn't try to predict what policymakers and irrational actors do. But it's generally good at forecasting some effects from changes along specific dimensions; if it wasn't, microeconomics and central banking wouldn't matter. If the interest rate increases 10 points overnight, what happens - nothing?

Re: The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2025

#183

Post by vkou »

jlhawn wrote: post #105
Maxion wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A park will generate less revenue than an apartment building, a sports complex, or a cafe. Not all value is quantifiable in USD.

this isn't necessarily true. While it generates less direct revenue, it increases nearby land value in two ways: 1) business activity which would have taken place on that parcel "overflows" to nearby parcels, ie, the demand for those other land uses doesn't go away and increases prices in the surrounding area. 2) the park provides real value to its users and access to that value also increases nearby ground rents.

If we're going to talk about speculative land value, I'll point out that the easiest way to raise it is to ban all future construction.

You are correct that the park provides real value to its users.

Re: The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2025

#184

Post by astrange »

andrepd wrote: post #92
Tycho wrote: post #34

I was thinking about this concept of creative destruction recently. I move to my neighbourhood in 2019. Before I got round to visiting them, a bunch of pubs and eateries closed down for the pandemic, and never re-opened. One pub became new apartments. A cafe became some sort of spa. Take the pub for instance, I could imagine it was a lifestyle business for someone who made enough money from it, but not a whole lot. I…

In the year 2025 the zeitgeist is decidedly against any considerations beside crude profit. Like someone pointed out: a park generates less revenue than a café. And a neighbourhood café probably less than a hyperoptimised gigachain. But is an urban park not an important part of quality of life? And is not a neighbourhood café with its crowd of regulars and familiar faces and accessible prices a better thing that yet…

One kind of worker the chains are better for is the people who work at the chain. Large businesses treat their employees better because they're more professional and can eg afford an HR department.

Sole proprietorships can be okay, but employee-hiring small businesses are run by tyrants and have fewer protections against worker abuse. After all, they're only small businesses because they aren't good enough to become big businesses.

Re: The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2025

#185

Post by astrange »

AtlasBarfed wrote: post #27
em500 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll add the obligatory Dilbert take: https://verisoeconomica.wordpress.com/2022/10/10/the-2022-no ... Sure, it's paid by the Swedish central bank instead of the Nobel foundation, and it wasn't established by Alfred Nobel himself. Nobody cares. Value of such awards depends entirely on peer recognition, not on who pays or what exact labels they carry. Selection for economics is done by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sci…

His descendants states that Nobel wouldn't have wanted a prize in his name. He didn't like economics because it is the science of greed. "Nobody cares" gotcha. Greed never cares.

It's the science of scarcity. Scarcity is the sort of thing that still exists if you don't believe in it. You could say it still believes in you.

Re: The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2025

#186

Post by astrange »

331c8c71 wrote: post #136
StopDisinfo910 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course, there is consensus in economics. It's a field which is mostly interested in models and anyone can agree that a model is consistant and implies surprising things even if they think the hypotheses it makes don't faithfully represent reality. It's endlessly fascinating to me how some people will happily disparage economics while having very little idea of what it's actually about.

Modelling isn't the higher intellectual pursuit it's made out to be. Imo designing theoretical models post-hoc to "support" a desired conclusion is not unheard of in econ/finance.

The 2019 economics prize went to empirical research.

The non-mainstrean economists (aka heterodox, aka cranks) are usually more obviously pursuing an agenda, but they definitely usually don't have better empirical evidence.

Re: The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2025

#187

Post by astrange »

belter wrote: post #18
nabla9 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN discussions are predictable: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45566804

Predictable...but are those aholes wrong...? :-) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44013692 Economics violates Popper demarcation criterion. Economic theories can't be falsified because you can't run controlled experiments on economies, rewind history, or isolate variables. When models fail, economists adjust assumptions ... Unfalsifiable = Unscientific.

> Economic theories can't be falsified because you can't run controlled experiments on economies, rewind history, or isolate variables.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Econometrics

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credibility_revolution

Economists are practically the only social scientists capable of doing this (even if it involves a lot of rainfall IVs). Everyone else p-hacks and calls it a day.

Re: The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2025

#188

Post by astrange »

IAmBroom wrote: post #55
belter wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Predictable...but are those aholes wrong...? :-) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44013692 Economics violates Popper demarcation criterion. Economic theories can't be falsified because you can't run controlled experiments on economies, rewind history, or isolate variables. When models fail, economists adjust assumptions ... Unfalsifiable = Unscientific.

> When models fail, economists adjust assumptions ... When models fail, physicist adjust hypotheses ...

Adjusting your hypothesis because your experiment failed has unintended consequences.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HARKing

Re: The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2025

#189

Post by BurningFrog »

oa335 wrote: post #169
BurningFrog wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The west didn't get rich from colonizing the world. It got rich domestically through industrialism. Then the newly rich countries went on to colonize the world, because now they could. If and how much the colonies made them even richer is debatable, but it was probably a net cost on average. This is one of several insights counter to "common sense" that economists have figured out.

> If and how much the colonies made them even richer is debatable, but it was probably a net cost on average. This is one of several insights counter to "common sense" that economists have figured out. I haven't heard this before, do you have sources where I could learn more?

That the West got wealthy from the Industrial Revolution is a commonly accepted fact AFAIK.

We didn't steal that wealth from Africa, in part because Africa had very little wealth.

I don't have a great link laying out this in more detail, but I know Johan Norberg has written and talked a fair amount about this.

Re: The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2025

#190

Post by ricksunny »

Thank you for not repeating the usual mistaken, and misleading, name for the prize "Nobel Prize in Economics" in the title.

EDIT: Recognizing @huitzitziltzin 's comment, this factoid was originally imparted to me IRL 8 years ago by an economist, one Jackie Mallett of the Threadneedle banking simulation project (and who probably wouldn't mind my invoking her by name on this topic).

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