Real-World Economics Review

from Lars Syll Causal identification requires nonstatistical information in addition to information encoded as data or their probability distributions … This need raises questions of to what extent can inference be codified or automated (which is to say, formalized) in ways that do more good than harm. In this setting, formal models – whether labeled ‘‘causal’’ or ‘‘statistical’’ – serve a crucial but limited role in providing hypothetical scenarios that establish what would be the case...

from Dean Baker I have been engaging on Twitter recently on my ideas on repealing Section 230. Not surprisingly, I provoked a considerable response. While much of it was angry ad hominems, some of it involved thoughtful comments, especially those from Jeff Koseff and Mike Masnick, the latter of whom took the time to write a full column responding to my proposals on repeal. I will directly respond to Mike’s column, but first I should probably outline again what I am proposing. I somewhat...

from Peter Radford Let’s stir things up for the New Year by continuing with one of my recent themes. A quote from an opinion piece in the NYT this morning [January 3rd]: “James Madison boasted that the Constitution achieved “the total exclusion of the people, in their collective capacity.” Its elaborate political mechanics reflect the elite dislike and mistrust of majority rule that Madison voiced when he wrote, “Had every Athenian citizen been a Socrates, every Athenian assembly would...

from Lars Syll

from Lars Syll One of the limitations with economics is the restricted possibility to perform experiments, forcing it to mainly rely on observational studies for knowledge of real-world economies. But still — the idea of performing laboratory experiments holds a firm grip of our wish to discover (causal) relationships between economic ‘variables.’If we only could isolate and manipulate variables in controlled environments, we would probably find ourselves in a situation where we with...

from Shimshon Bichler and Jonathan Nitzan If you thought that oil profits are about producing oil, think again. The enclosed chart, updated from our 2015 Real-World Economics Review paper, ‘Still About Oil?’, shows that the main determinant of oil profit — and specifically of differential oil profit — is not output, but prices. The figure shows the correlation between two series: (1) the differential oil profits of the world’s integrated oil companies, computed as the ratio between their...

from Peter Radford What on earth were they doing? Rocked but undaunted by the great financial crisis the orthodoxy of our central banks survived to fight another day.  The system had been saved.  That no one saw the onrushing crisis is still being debated.  Of course some people saw it coming.  Anyone with a scintilla of understanding of Minsky for instance.  But those folk are hard to find in the top seats of central banks. The objective of the so-called independent central bank is to...

This week on#GoalChatLive Judy M Baker (Book Marketing Mentor), Dean Hankey (Marketing Magician), and Jeff Klein (Business Speaking Sherpa) join host Debra Eckerling to talk about Showcasing Yourself. The threesome - who are fans of speaking for showcasing yourself - share the origins of their "monikers," advice for standing out, and more.  The bottom line: You can only share what you know - and how you help - if people know who you are. To take it even further, according to...

The Bank of England has a 28 MB Excel dataset containing: “A millenium of macro economic data”. A treasure trove. A good thing about it: as it are long term series and as these are roughly based on national accounts data and not just on economics 101 it’s not only focused on GDP but also on sectoral developments and flows between and within sectors. I can’t show it all, and… will leave, to name only one (!) major part of it, the Flow of Funds data, which, among other things, show...