Tag Archives: economics and science

Robert Heilbroner hits it out of the park in this short article, originally a speech. It's a fun read, too.Grasping RealityRobert Heilbroner (1996): The Embarrassment of Economics: Weekend ReadingBrad DeLong | Professor of Economics, UCAL Berkeley

Funny critique of economics as patent nonsense. The Radford Free PressThose Lumps MatterPeter Radford

Quote worth pondering.Lars P. Syll’s BlogEconophysics Lars P. Syll | Professor, Malmo University

Nicola Headlam is, I think, right with respect to “how the rules of the economy are set”: “Somehow, someone, somewhere made these rules up. They aren’t laws of nature.” And they determine “who’s got what and where and why”. The question is, how do we teach economics so that that message gets through? What to do? Start calling BS for starters. This is yet another example of economics as philosophy, which is rationally based, rather being than science, which is empirically based. This is a...

Weekend reading. There are only three entries. Easy read.Ed Zimmer is an engineer and has only recently encountered economics. But I had now picked up an interest in macroeconomics — and started seriously reading many of the economists' blogs and papers. But the more I read, the more disillusioned I became. Having no previous introduction to economics, I initially assumed economists were scientists (and that was reinforced by the math I was seeing). But as I read their blogs and papers...

With all the tired and plain wrong critiques of economics out there that are easily shot down by even the most critical student of economics, I thought I'd try my hand at writing at one that might pass muster. I did write a book, but it was more aimed at taking a new direction; this will be a more specific critique. First, let me avoid the common mistake of using the word "economics" but then exclusively talking about macroeconomics: my critique is being leveled at macroeconomics (macro)....

More on the foundations of economics. Information Transfer EconomicsThe economic way of thinking?Jason Smith

Another takedown. But let's take this result at face value. So now we have a largely model-independent finding that to first order the effect of corporate tax cuts is increased wages. The scientific thing to do is not to continue arguing about the model, but to in fact compare the result to data. What should we expect? We should a large change in aggregate wages when there are changes in corporate tax rates — in either direction. Therefore the corporate tax increases in the 1993 tax law...

I agree that "unrealistic assumptions" has to be just about the laziest econ critique in existence. I wrote a post I was particularly proud of about how a lot of econ criticism is starting to look like vacuous art criticism. Information Transfer EconomicsLazy econ critique critiquesJason Smith