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Things Economists Agree On

gregmankiw.blogspot.com

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Re: Things Economists Agree On

#91

Post by fredex »

tsiki wrote: post #80
HilbertSpace wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I said about efficiency in China is a faithful description of what academic econ commonly says. You patched up their argument. Still, my explanation for why China is sewing the buttons and South Carolina is not is correct: The government in China makes their young women offers they can't refuse. The young women in South Carolina can do just as well and, with better nutrition, medical care, information systems, t…

>What I said about efficiency in China is a faithful description of what academic econ commonly says. No, you won't get a single econ prof to say that the Chinese are more efficient at sewing buttons. But then again: >More generally, there's next to nothing that China can actually do more efficiently than the US can. So, they sell us stuff just because they are cheaper, not because they are more efficient. This is ex…

"No, you won't get a single econ prof to say that the Chinese are more efficient at sewing buttons."

Are you serious? A Chinese worker will produce more sewing buttons for $1 than an American can. I'm very sure every reputable economist agrees.

Re: Things Economists Agree On

#92

Post by bugsy »

Great article. I fully agree with its findings that 93% of US economists are me-too academics who don't understand economics and whose "consensus" is destroying the world.

Re: Things Economists Agree On

#93

Post by wakkawakka »

kiba wrote: post #64
HilbertSpace wrote: post #53

Here's one broad way Mankiw and company are going wrong. I start with three preliminary points and then point to the going wrong: (1) They have physics envy . In particular, they want to sit in a small, dark, closed room and with just pure thought , with little to no contact with any real economy, come up with some economics version of Newton's second law F = ma or Einstein's result in special relativity E = mc^2. No…

Samuelson have thought that the Soviet economy would keep growing and surpass the US's GDP. Boy, he was wrong. Then the Soviet collapses in the 1990 or so. Others, like the Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises predicted the death of the Soviet Union and he has dealt with Red Vienna. He also thought that soviet style economy wouldn't work.

another figure - johan galtung (mathematician, peace advisor) - talking about the state of the world: * the berlin wall will fall before 1990 * shortly thereafter the soviet union will collapse

* when the udssr collapsed for real, he said there will be a new enemy: it will either be the green party or islam.

* his recent prediction: the american empire will fall before 2020. he usually continues arguing the american republic will be better.

johan galtung is doing "integrative assesment". he is taking into account the non-uniformity observed in some situations. and he considers different attitudes influencing each other.

one example: when the avantgarde left the church, they turned to science. why does science describe the world in terms of perfection? it is easy to see, he says - because "god's creation was perfect".

Re: Things Economists Agree On

#94

Post by jacoblyles »

icegreentea wrote: post #22
sliverstorm wrote: post #4

I'm curious about the "Eliminate Agriculture Subsidies" one. I don't know enough to give a good opinion, but it seems to me like that could wind up pricing basic, quality food out of the hands of the poorest people, and they'd either have problems with starvation or be forced to eat junk. I mean, maybe I'm wrong, but I could have sworn it was The Man that is keeping eggs down at around $3/dozen and milk around $4/gal…

Agricultural subsidies are one of the weird parts of countries economic policies. Simply put, nearly every single developed country has them. And nearly every country agrees that 'in the long run we should probably get rid of them', but then also agrees 'realistically, nothing will budge, so we'll ignore it as much as we can at every WTO (previously GATT) meeting' And the reason why they continue to exist, and will p…

Some governments have gotten rid of them. I believe New Zealand cut its agricultural subsidies greatly in recent years without ill effect.

Re: Things Economists Agree On

#95

Post by jacoblyles »

sandGorgon wrote: post #71
HilbertSpace wrote: post #53

Here's one broad way Mankiw and company are going wrong. I start with three preliminary points and then point to the going wrong: (1) They have physics envy . In particular, they want to sit in a small, dark, closed room and with just pure thought , with little to no contact with any real economy, come up with some economics version of Newton's second law F = ma or Einstein's result in special relativity E = mc^2. No…

do you have a blog ? seriously, this was a superbly informative rant.

The author is a crackpot. If you enjoyed this, there are thousands of crackpot blogs in this style. The style includes, but is not limited to, emphasizing random words in a sentence, inventing neologisms for people he disagrees with, and expressing extremely populist views.

The fact is that more people have risen out of poverty in the last 50 years than in the entire previous history of the world, largely due to economic globalization. And the average wealth of an American has also increased greatly.

The author is full of the excrement of male cattle. I hope he is getting upvotes for the reasonable critiques he makes at the beginning of his wall of text and not the dishonest crap at the bottom.

Re: Things Economists Agree On

#96

Post by tsiki »

fredex wrote: post #91
tsiki wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What I said about efficiency in China is a faithful description of what academic econ commonly says. No, you won't get a single econ prof to say that the Chinese are more efficient at sewing buttons. But then again: >More generally, there's next to nothing that China can actually do more efficiently than the US can. So, they sell us stuff just because they are cheaper, not because they are more efficient. This is ex…

"No, you won't get a single econ prof to say that the Chinese are more efficient at sewing buttons." Are you serious? A Chinese worker will produce more sewing buttons for $1 than an American can. I'm very sure every reputable economist agrees.

Obviously, but we're talking absolute terms here. Look at his examples (20 fingers etc). He's talking about the efficiency of sewing buttons, not about the efficiency of sewing buttons compared to the salary.

Re: Things Economists Agree On

#97

Post by thomasz »

john_horton wrote: post #79
HilbertSpace wrote: post #53

Here's one broad way Mankiw and company are going wrong. I start with three preliminary points and then point to the going wrong: (1) They have physics envy . In particular, they want to sit in a small, dark, closed room and with just pure thought , with little to no contact with any real economy, come up with some economics version of Newton's second law F = ma or Einstein's result in special relativity E = mc^2. No…

A few points: (1) Many if not most economists are empirical. Recent John Bates Clark medals---a good reflection of what academic economists think is the best work being done right now---have gone to economists doing empirical work. Recent examples include what works for development (evaluated with large randomized controlled trials), what are the causes of growing income inequality, how should we structure auctions e…

GDP / capita is a pretty meaningless metric if you consider that wealth is a lot more concentrated these days.

Re: Things Economists Agree On

#98

Post by Benjo »

john_horton wrote: post #79
HilbertSpace wrote: post #53

Here's one broad way Mankiw and company are going wrong. I start with three preliminary points and then point to the going wrong: (1) They have physics envy . In particular, they want to sit in a small, dark, closed room and with just pure thought , with little to no contact with any real economy, come up with some economics version of Newton's second law F = ma or Einstein's result in special relativity E = mc^2. No…

A few points: (1) Many if not most economists are empirical. Recent John Bates Clark medals---a good reflection of what academic economists think is the best work being done right now---have gone to economists doing empirical work. Recent examples include what works for development (evaluated with large randomized controlled trials), what are the causes of growing income inequality, how should we structure auctions e…

In response to point 5. Is it clear that per capita GDP is a good measure of standard of living? Adjusted median income has not risen much with GDP. Do you have an argument for why standard of living should be evaluated as a mean instead of a median?

http://www.stanford.edu/class/polisci120a/immigration/Median...

Re: Things Economists Agree On

#100

Post by sesqu »

notahacker wrote: post #72
HilbertSpace wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I said about supply and demand curves is well within common presentations by econ profs. What you did was patch up such presentations. There are many ways to do that, and with enough such patches the theory can have fewer counterexamples but, then, look so narrow it looks useless. One way to patch up the theory is to say that transistors in 1955 are NOT THE SAME good or product as transistors in 2010. Then my da…

I enjoyed your original rant against economists and the damage some of their bold but ultimately baseless claims can do, but many of your examples seem ill-chosen. It's really no more complex to incoporate bundling vs budget constraints and the time value of money into neoclassical economic models than it is to incorporate friction into a physical model. Appending " given no corresponding increase in supply " to a cl…

I'm pretty sure I don't agree. Many of the fundamental assumptions in economics aren't just first-order approximations; they're about tractability. You can leave out friction and get reliable ballpark figures, but when you assume monotonicity, you're liable to end up wildly off base sooner or later.

That's what I consider the main problem of economics. To use the gp's expression, they have physics envy when they need to be demanding statistics and psychology. The problem area is difficult and overpopulated, and what's worse, worth money. That means that the most apt people do business for themselves instead of suggesting on the business of others.

Much of economics is useful, but little is reliable. As much as it pains me to say this, I believe we could do with more (quiet) focus on economic policies - just not from the math people, but from the social studies people.

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