I think that some guy who “studies economics as a hobby” and is quite keen on a topic only kept barely alive by fifth-rate Marxists probably doesn’t have much to say of much interest to me, and I’ll never get the thirty seconds I wasted scanning his blog back. And I thought it was funny he linked to d-squared, who’s an idiot because he makes all sorts of scathing comments about topics which he has a weak and shallow understanding of, as evidenced by his lack of understanding of fairly basic econometrics.
To an outsider it looks like “mainstream economics” ignores quite a bit of important cavaets when its shilling policies to outsiders.
How would you know whether this is an important caveat, Jason? Because you read it on some random blog?
Because a description of the problem sure sounds interesting, and I haven’t found a good explanation of why it doesn’t matter? Christ, you’re a credentialist.
On the political behavior of the profession side, this is interesting.
This is more about how/when academic economists insert themselves into the debate than research, but in response to Paul Krugman I’m curious about how many mainstream economists (aside from him) were attempting to correct public perception about the underlying causes of and obvious solution to the California energy crisis.
It was a useful little event which provided me with a nice lecture (nice to me, no idea if my students agreed) about counterintuitive results which could be taught in a simple Econ 101 framework. The result is that if a firm is a monopoly then instituting hard price caps can have the counterintuitive effect of actually leading them to increase output. Capping prices would’ve kept the price down and the lights on.
I don’t actually remember at the time too many academic economists getting into the newspapers to gently explain why, contrary to much of the nonsense being peddled at the time, the obvious short term solution was to institute immediate hard price caps, a policy the Bush FERC was resisting. A quick Nexis hunt doesn’t turn up anything to contradict that idea, though I didn’t do an exhaustive search.
Economists may not have tried to make that case because most of them just don’t attempt to participate in the public discourse very often and they aren’t on journalists’ rolodexes. Maybe they didn’t make the case because they weren’t aware of or didn’t believe evidence of market manipulation. Maybe they hesitated to make the case because they worried that they’d negatively impact a deregulation agenda they tended to agree with at least in general terms. Maybe they hesitated because they were concerned because if a policy which they’re generally allergic to (government price setting) had a positive effect that politicians would try applying it to other areas.
I don’t know what the answer is, or which combination, but it’s worth thinking about.
There’s no real point in talking to skedastic Jason. I don’t know why you try. He’s convinced he knows better than everyone so he’s not here to discuss he’s here to lecture and sneer and smirk at us from up in his ivory tower. Don’t waste your time.
You didn’t just say the problem “sounds interesting,” which would be bad enough for the same reason that musing about an “interesting” blog on Intelligent Design is suspect. You then went on to confidently assert that on the basis of this guy’s blog that economists “ignore quite a bit of important cavaets when its shilling policies to outsider.” I ask you how you know that this caveat is “important” and you just insult me, again, instead of actually answering the question. It isn’t “credentialism” to think that one actually should have some sort of a clue what they’re talking about if they want to make sweeping declarative statements about some complex subject.
Where humanity came from is pretty interesting; it’s also not particularly difficult to figure out why intelligent design is not a good explanation of anything.
By contrast, the aggregation thing is apparently either so complicated I can’t understand the refutation without lots of study, the refutation isn’t out there and there’s something to it, or I just can’t find it. I have a few things to read in the area queued up - from both the awesome credentialed mainstream, and, uh, Joan Robinson on the other side - but I don’t know when I going to get around to reading them. On a practical note, I’ve found problems that can be explained in a paragraph (in layman’s terms!) but can’t be solved in a paragraph are where all the interesting stuff lies. I’d say it’s an important cavaet because it apparently crops up everywhere in the field.
What would he say to a policy maker that asked the same thing? Just trust me?
You have to get to specialized definitions somehow, and that’s though non-specialized terms. If he can’t describe the phenomenon that relegates these caveats to unimportance for laypeople, then what use is his job? That’s in both senses, since he is a professor after all, no?
I mean, if the effects of the theory of relativity can be explained in layman’s terms, I don’t see why he can’t explain the effects that make these caveats unimportant in layman’s terms.
Edit: That’s also why I applied the “best as he can” qualifier. Some people are better at this than others.
And yet, there are many otherwise intelligent people who persist in believing in intelligent design. Changing people’s minds about complex topics through rational argument is difficult, particularly when they have pre-existing biases.
I don’t know or particularly care about heterodox economics, but I find it frankly inconceivable that papers espousing well-supported theories are being universally shut out of economics journals because of some grand conspiracy. Why are you more willing to believe hereodox economists than, say, the heterodox beliefs of 911Truth.org or Adam Trombly ?
Mordrak: It’s more correct to say that an approximation of the effects of the theory of relativity can be explained in relatively layman’s terms.
The problem is that any highly technical subject necessarily involves lots of jargon and whatnot in order to discuss it. It’s no different for physics. Economics is kind of a unique problem in that there’s a pretty broad intersection with public policy, so there’s a lot of pressure to explain things “in layman’s terms.” Physics by and large doesn’t much have this problem.
My point is just that challenging someone to explain a technical subject in layman’s terms is often an unfair challenge. Technical jargon and the like don’t exist because people want to lock Joe Sixpack out of understanding their field; it exists because without it the stuff is really fucking hard to understand.
That’s all I’m asking for, just an approximation of why it doesn’t matter.
The problem is that any highly technical subject necessarily involves lots of jargon and whatnot in order to discuss it. It’s no different for physics. Economics is kind of a unique problem in that there’s a pretty broad intersection with public policy, so there’s a lot of pressure to explain things “in layman’s terms.” Physics by and large doesn’t much have this problem.
My point is just that challenging someone to explain a technical subject in layman’s terms is often an unfair challenge. Technical jargon and the like don’t exist because people want to lock Joe Sixpack out of understanding their field; it exists because without it the stuff is really fucking hard to understand.
I understand why jargon exists and I understand it can be difficult to explain technical concepts in layman’s terms. Even though I don’t remember most of it, I’ve studied 3 sections of physics, I’ve studied differential equations, linear algebra, up through 3 dimensional calculus and early advanced mathematics (set theory, relations, yada, yada). I’ve studied computer science including assembly, c, and c++ and data structures and algorithm analysis. I’m not claiming I’m smart or that that stuff is even advanced. Hell, I made it through so it can’t be. I’m just saying that I’ve been exposed to the importance of specialized terms. Even after moving to the dreaded liberal arts, there’s still technical jargon that’s used for specificity.
But I’ve also learned through that experience that concepts can be explained in layman’s terms. If someone’s not willing to make the effort, I might as well go ask a shaman.
Edit: So instead of just telling Jason they aren’t important, say why. If they are too complex for him to understand without more training, then at least say that. If he doesn’t want to, then he should say he doesn’t want to.
A few loons are claiming that, but for the reason it’s more “the discipline is really hostile to some things for ideological reasons and shoves some stuff that looks like significant areas of disagreement under the carpet.”
Milton Friedman running an international freemason conspiracy to subjugate humanity is a lot funnier, though.
So when some Intelligent Design guy rejects a biologist’s technical argument on some molecular biological topic, he’s a nutjob with an agenda; but when you reject an economist (for the blahgosfeer!), you’re an enlightened and rational actor just looking for the truth? From someone who isn’t a “credentialist” (aka “has credentials in the relevant area”)?
Shift, I wouldn’t be saying that if he was providing the damn reasons, rather than just flailing around about how someone doesn’t have a degree or whatever it is.
I haven’t read extra-carefully, but I find it hard to believe he’s provided no explanation in this 110+ post thread. And I don’t generally see him making an issue of his own training unless and until someone else barfs out how he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
Don’t you think if we had a charged-up thread about project management or programming best practices or something, that you’d have good reason to bring up your cred against some idiot who kept claiming you are ignorant and that Joel On Software is always right or something?
He hasn’t explained at any point, unless you count “go read this enormous set of economic theory.” I find it hard to believe the defense can’t be shortened below that.
Only after I tried to actually explain the reasoning.
Oddly, I feel no need to “defend” mainstream economics against you and some random blogger, Jason, and I am not going to write a lecture on the CCC for your benefit (I think it’s fun that in this thread I’ve been vilified both for declining to lecture and for lecturing). Shift is correct that you would go ballistic if anyone talked about any other discipline the way you talk about economics. What would you say about someone who opined that global warming is erroneous, a fundamentally flawed idea which moronic climatologists yap about while ignoring fundamental problems for ideological reasons? What if this someone’s claims were based on some guy’s blog, some guy who describes his expertise in climatology as “an amateur who studies climatology as a hobby?”
Yup, my contribution to your bringing up the CCC is to yawn mightily and decline to spend my time explaining why ancient Marxist nonsense is nonsense. It would be futile: any brief forum explanation might get some shallow sense of the basic ideas across, but not enough such that non-specialists would be able to critically evaluate the arguments or, more importantly, the relevance of these ideas to the broader literature. (Tyler Cowen seems to be ill-advisedly wading into these waters on MR. You could bug him to elaborate.)
Hey, how about we switch roles? You spend a couple of hours explaining the dense mathematics of capital theory in layman’s terms, as best you can, not because you have any interest in doing so but merely because I demand you do so. Then I’ll insult you, announce you and everyone in your profession are evil morons, and conclude by insisting that citing refereed papers is “arguing from authority.” It’ll be fun, maybe Disney will make a movie about the whole wacky switcheroo! (Russell Crowe should play me; I often stare intently at shiny objects.)
