Real-World Economics Review

from David Ruccio If there ever was an argument in support of Medicare for All it’s this: despite spending more on health care than any other country, the United States has seen increasing mortality and falling life expectancy for people ages 25 to 64, who should be in the prime of their lives. A new report published in the Journal of the American Medical Association paints a bleak picture: overall life expectancy in the United States, which had increased for most of the past 60 years,...

from Lars Syll The financial crisis of 2007-08 hit most laymen and economists with surprise. What was it that went wrong with our macroeconomic models, since they obviously did not foresee the collapse or even make it conceivable? There are many who have ventured to answer this question. And they have come up with a variety of answers, ranging from the exaggerated mathematization of economics to irrational and corrupt politicians. But the root of our problem goes much deeper. It...

from Blair Fix Branko Milanović is the oracle of ancient inequality. He has muckraked to compile inequality data for many pre-industrial societies. Here’s a chart of inequality versus GDP per capita for ancient societies: Ancient Inequality Data from Branko Milanović. (Source) The curved line is the ‘inequality possibility frontier’. This is the maximum inequality that is achievable at the given level of production. I have my own ideas about what creates an inequality frontier — I think...

from Lars Syll Nobel prizes are usually given in recognition of ideas that are already more or less guaranteed a legacy. But occasionally they prompt as much debate as admiration. This year’s economics award, given to Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo and Michael Kremer … recognised the laureates’ efforts to use randomised controlled trials (RCTs) to answer social-science questions … RCT evangelists sometimes argue that their technique is the “gold standard”, better able than other...

from Dean Baker This is one in the “whose is bigger?” category; which country has added the most to their GDP over the last three years. There is not any particular reason anyone should care about this, except that Donald Trump has made a big point of touting something about how no one says China will soon be the world’s largest economy anymore. In fact, China’s economy surpassed the U.S. economy in 2015, using the purchasing power parity measure of GDP. This measure, in principle, uses a...

from Blair Fix Do you think that the discipline of economics is a sham — an ideology masquerading as science? If so, here is a reading list for you. These 10 books have influenced my thinking over the years. Read them and join me in the journey of the economic heretic. 1. Capital as Power. A Study of Order and Creorder Jonathan Nitzan and Shimshon Bichler Few books offer both a compelling critique of mainstream economics and a bold alternative vision for political economy. But in...

from Lars Syll [embedded content] If anything, Snow’s path-breaking research underlines how important it is not to equate science with statistical calculation. All science entail human judgement, and using statistical models doesn’t relieve us of that necessity. Working with misspecified models, the scientific value of statistics is actually zero — even though you’re making valid statistical inferences! Statistical models are no substitutes for doing real science. Or as a German...

from Geoff Davies The need for a new start in economics arises regularly on this blog site, for example: Economics — enslaved by the wrong theory  And here is an edited extract addressing this issue from my book Economy, Society, Nature..  The point is not that ‘complexity’ gives rise to another ‘school’ of economics, but that it provides a general framework that accords with observations and is capable of accommodating many existing schools, but not all.   Many of the ideas presented...

from David Ruccio Well that didn’t go so well. . . Still, Elon Musk’s new Cybertruck would appear to be the perfect design for America’s contemporary dystopia. Its bullet-proof stainless steel alloy panels and transparent metal glass are tailor-made to keep its elite occupants safely guarded from attack. And even though the windows obviously need considerable improvement before production begins, and “despite ‘no advertising & no paid endorsement’,” Tesla has already received almost...

from Malgorzata Dereniowska Going Digital: What is the Future of Business and Labour? Welcome to the second week of the Conference which discusses recent contributions to the understanding of the digital economy and its consequences for business trends and labour challenges. Read the latest comments on the DISCUSSION FORUM which is open until December 9th. All papers are available HERE. You can participate in the Discussion Forum by commenting on specific papers, or...