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Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2024

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Re: Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2024

#51

Post by AnimalMuppet »

CyberRymden wrote: post #40
Eumenes wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Krugman Not sure I'd spend time on a Krugman book. He predicted in 1998 that the internet would cease having an economic impact by 2005 and that it would be no greater than fax machines. He's like the Neil deGrasse Tyson of economics.

Krugman is controversial at times, but he is a serious economist. The quote is also taken out of two important contexts. 1. It was not a serious academic prediction but rather part of a fluff piece by the Times about future precitions. 2. The quote also exists in the context of a debate that was raging during the advent of the internet whether or not the internet would hyper charge productivity and economic growth. I…

The lack of visible productivity growth. In particular, it's not as visible as you expect in the GDP statistics.

Take TV Guide, for instance. Now, if anybody watches broadcast television, they can use the internet to find out what's on when. Is that better or worse for users than having a paper TV guide? In many ways it's better. But it shows up in the GDP as a negative, because nobody's buying TV Guide any more.

Or take Google. I can search for any information I want, for free. That creates immense value - immense in every sense except the GDP, where it doesn't show up at all, because it's free.

Wikipedia. Linux. gcc. The Wayback Machine. Even HN. All this is available to us, whenever we want it, for whatever purpose we want, for free. There's great value to us. Just nothing that shows up on the GDP statistics, because it's all free. (Yeah, I know, RedHat sells Linux, and Wikipedia asks for donations. They aren't Microsoft selling Windows and The World Book, though. You can still use them for free, and not get sued or jailed.)

Re: Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2024

#52

Post by kiba »

feedforward wrote: post #37
dash2 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China has become more and more authoritarian under Xi, its GDP growth stats may be dodgy, and recently its housing bubble has popped big-style. It could go the way of Japan. I agree with your last sentence, all the same.

People were saying when the PRC was founded 75 years ago it would collapse any day now. They were saying this during the cultural revolution. They were saying it earlier this year, as China sent a robot to the far side of the moon to collect moon rocks and bring them back to earth. And they're still saying it. I'm not holding my breath.

Just because PRC didn't collapse doesn't mean PRC perform well. On the contrary, the current strength of PRC is probably a reversion to mean, what China would be like if it wasn't so mismanaged, and yet decades late from where they could be.

States can endure a lot of mismanagement. Look at North Korea for instance. What we won't know is when we hit the breaking point.

What is happening in Russia may lead to an eventual collapse, though unlikely. There are some signs of a loss of monopoly on violence as the system is pushed to its breaking point. Hopefully that won't happen, but it's a scary possibility nonetheless.

Re: Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2024

#53

Post by kiba »

AnimalMuppet wrote: post #51
CyberRymden wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Krugman is controversial at times, but he is a serious economist. The quote is also taken out of two important contexts. 1. It was not a serious academic prediction but rather part of a fluff piece by the Times about future precitions. 2. The quote also exists in the context of a debate that was raging during the advent of the internet whether or not the internet would hyper charge productivity and economic growth. I…

The lack of visible productivity growth. In particular, it's not as visible as you expect in the GDP statistics . Take TV Guide, for instance. Now, if anybody watches broadcast television, they can use the internet to find out what's on when. Is that better or worse for users than having a paper TV guide? In many ways it's better. But it shows up in the GDP as a negative, because nobody's buying TV Guide any more. Or…

Sure, there's a lot of value. There's also a lot of slops and negative value. These days I don't even use wikipedia that much even though I googled things constantly.

GDP is a very gross measure of things to be sure, but also difficult to fake.

Re: Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2024

#54

Post by MichaelZuo »

inglor_cz wrote: post #46
MichaelZuo wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it makes sense to discuss it relative to the ‘political and ruling class’? Since they pretty much all have party cards already. And the moment they give it up means they’re kicked out from any decision making, from what I understand. Yes internal factions within the party can arbitrarily punish each other for made up reasons all day long, every day of the year. So in a sense it was already authoritarian without…

The difference between oligarchy that deliberately maintains balance of power and interests between, say, dozens or hundreds of prominent players, and a one-man rule where the "courtiers" are just richer than an average citizen, but equally subjugated to the Dear Leader, is enormous. Both Russia and China developed since 2000 from one to the other, and I wonder what the end game will be. In Russian case, the developm…

So the degree of authoritarian decision making felt by ‘courtiers’ within the party can vary from year to year?

I guess that is possible, but if that’s the case, wouldn’t that naturally be their goal? To concentrate power and authority in one place, or person, that they can more readily manipulate.

Re: Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2024

#55

Post by alephnerd »

blackhawkC17 wrote: post #50
kome wrote: post #27

Terrible decision. Very bad and sloppy economics, a simplified version of what sociology and political science have been doing much better for over 40 years, as if before these crucial contributions we had no idea that institutions, forms of power and social conflict affect economic outcomes. Branko Milanovic has aptly and rather amusingly defined Acemoglu's naive theorizing as "Wikipedia entries with regressions" ht…

There’s nothing racist about stating that strong institutions and rule of law lead to economic success. It’s an obvious truth, which many Africans reject for some reason. I’m Nigerian, and my country is a clear example of how excessive corruption and dependence on a natural resource (oil) makes a country mediocre.

Dan Rogger published an interesting paper 13 years ago digging into this from a Civil Service standpoint [0]

Some of the recommendations were implemented, but it's still very much a work in progress.

[0] - https://www.danrogger.com/files/survey%20reports/Nigeria%20C...

Re: Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2024

#56

Post by AlbertCory »

CyberRymden wrote: post #40
Eumenes wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Krugman Not sure I'd spend time on a Krugman book. He predicted in 1998 that the internet would cease having an economic impact by 2005 and that it would be no greater than fax machines. He's like the Neil deGrasse Tyson of economics.

Krugman is controversial at times, but he is a serious economist. The quote is also taken out of two important contexts. 1. It was not a serious academic prediction but rather part of a fluff piece by the Times about future precitions. 2. The quote also exists in the context of a debate that was raging during the advent of the internet whether or not the internet would hyper charge productivity and economic growth. I…

> Krugman is controversial at times

Kind of like saying Lysenko was controversial at times.

He's not "controversial," he's just a bloviator. His credentials as a serious economist expired long ago when he signed up with the leftist team and agreed to never challenge them again, on anything.

When you have to spend many words on explaining the "context" in which someone's quotes should be viewed, you are losing.

Re: Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2024

#57

Post by coliveira »

inglor_cz wrote: post #46
MichaelZuo wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it makes sense to discuss it relative to the ‘political and ruling class’? Since they pretty much all have party cards already. And the moment they give it up means they’re kicked out from any decision making, from what I understand. Yes internal factions within the party can arbitrarily punish each other for made up reasons all day long, every day of the year. So in a sense it was already authoritarian without…

The difference between oligarchy that deliberately maintains balance of power and interests between, say, dozens or hundreds of prominent players, and a one-man rule where the "courtiers" are just richer than an average citizen, but equally subjugated to the Dear Leader, is enormous. Both Russia and China developed since 2000 from one to the other, and I wonder what the end game will be. In Russian case, the developm…

[flagged]

Re: Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2024

#58

Post by inglor_cz »

coliveira wrote: post #57
inglor_cz wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference between oligarchy that deliberately maintains balance of power and interests between, say, dozens or hundreds of prominent players, and a one-man rule where the "courtiers" are just richer than an average citizen, but equally subjugated to the Dear Leader, is enormous. Both Russia and China developed since 2000 from one to the other, and I wonder what the end game will be. In Russian case, the developm…

[flagged]

You don't read my mind well if you think that I am against China defending itself. Most nations have an army for that purpose.

I am against China performing threatening exercises near Taiwan and against China claiming the majority of the South China Sea for themselves when hundreds of millions of other people live on its shores.

Ever heard of "the Nine Dashes"?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine-dash_line

That has zilch to do with defense. That is expansionism, every bit as bad as its Western equivalents.

Re: Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2024

#59

Post by zorked »

dash2 wrote: post #17
js8 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read the summary from the review and I am not convinced that neoliberal US and EU have a less extractive governance structure than China has, as the authors seem to claim. It's been a decade since the book was published and China is still going strong. We will see.

China has become more and more authoritarian under Xi, its GDP growth stats may be dodgy, and recently its housing bubble has popped big-style. It could go the way of Japan. I agree with your last sentence, all the same.

China is the #1 trading partner of nearly every country in the world. That's all you need to know about how bad they are doing.

Re: Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2024

#60

Post by AlbertCory »

doodlebugging wrote: post #13

Seems like one conclusion that can be drawn is that the indigenous people who get colonized should just shut up and enjoy their new reservations. The political, societal, and economic benefits of colonization were not intended to help them. Those changes were only to help those who did the colonizing build a new society that was free from the institutions that prevented them having a voice in how they were able to co…

> indigenous people who get colonized

Academic talking points. Talk about the indigenous Irish who got "colonized" by the Celts, or the Britons who got "colonized" by the Saxons, Danes, and Normans, or the native American tribes who got "colonized" by other tribes, or the Gauls who got "colonized" by migrant tribes.

The fact is, everyone is on "stolen land" including the "indigenous." The Spaniards were more exploitive than the English and other northern Europeans (look up "Potosi"), but that doesn't make the latter perfect.

The New World was going to be integrated with the Old World sooner or later, no matter who did it.

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