Real-World Economics Review

from Ryan Kyger1and Blair Fix Philosophy of science is about as useful to scientists as ornithology is to birds. — attributed to Richard Feynman2 Most scientists don’t worry much about philosophy; they just get on with doing ‘science’. They run experiments, analyze data, and report results. And by so doing, they fall repeatedly into known philosophical pitfalls. This essay is about two such pitfalls: essentialism and traditionalism. ‘Essentialism’ is the view that behind real-world...

from Peter Radford What is about technology?  It’s either a panacea for all our ills, or it’s the cause of all the aforesaid ills.  Why can’t we make up our minds? This morning’s Financial Times is, sort of, a good demonstration of the confusion we are in. On the one hand there’s any article about cryptocurrencies.  On the other there’s a rather less techno-centric article about bank culture.  In both cases technology looms large.  In neither is technology really mentioned in detail.  It...

from Lars Syll Development actions and interventions (policies/programs/projects/practices) should be based on the evidence. This truism now comes with a radical proposal about the meaning of “the evidence.” In development practice, where there are hundreds of complex, sometimes rapidly changing, contexts seemingly innocuous phrases like “rely on the rigorous evidence” are taken to mean: “Ignore evidence from your context and rely in your context on evidence that was ‘rigorous’ for...

from Peter Radford The Bank for International Settlements issued its annual report yesterday.  Perhaps the central banks are feeling a little insecure, or perhaps they are a little more sensitive to economic reality, but the BIS felt compelled to use one third of its report to tackle inequality.  Here’s the summary as given in the report: “Key takeaways The long-term rise in economic inequality since the 1980s is largely due to structural factors, well outside the reach of monetary...

from Dean Baker I know I harp a lot on all the ways we structure the market to redistribute income upward, but that’s because we keep digging in deeper on these policies, and almost no one else talks about it. I get that it’s cool to talk about all sorts of tax and transfer schemes to redistribute some of the money we give to the rich and super-rich. But, I’m one of those old-fashion sorts who thinks it’s simpler just not to give them all the money in the first place. So, now that you...

Harley brand LED front turn signal kit in Amber with Clear lens covers. This is not the standard plug and play light set that you see online or a all in 1-piece that easily snaps in! The wiring was difficult to deal with due to the fact the leftover wire inside the signal light was short but I managed using butt splice connectors and not with the ones supplied with the kit. When the red led lights show up, I will so the full box set with all the various parts.

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from Thomas Piketty in Le Monde The Covid crisis is forcing us to rethink the tools of redistribution and solidarity. Proposals are springing up everywhere . . . . The idea that we just have to wait for wealth to spread doesn’t make much sense: if that were the case, we would have seen it long ago. The simplest solution is a redistribution of inheritance allowing the whole population to receive a minimal inheritance, which, to fix ideas, could be of the order of 120,000 Euros (i.e. 60% of...

from Lars Syll Mainstream macroeconomics can only progress if it gets rid of the DSGE albatross around its neck. It is better to do it now than to wait for another 20 years because the question is not whether but when DSGE modeling will be discarded. DSGE modeling is a story of a death foretold … Getting rid of DSGE models is critical because the hegemonic DSGE program is crowding out alternative macro methodologies that do work … DSGE practitioners, who with a mixture of bluff and...