Tag Archives: economics profession

On August 6, 2018, British tax expert Richard Murphy who is becoming increasingly sympathetic to the principles of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) published a blog post, which recorded an exchange with one James Meadway, who is the economics advisor to the Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell in Britain. The exchange took place on the social media page of a Labour Party insider who has long advocated a Land Tax, which McDonnell is on the public record as saying will “raise the funds we need” to...

My paper is a survey of the huge amount of solid empirical evidence against the utility maximization hypothesis that is at the core of all microeconomics currently being taught today in Economics textbooks at universities all over the world. It is obviously important, because if what it says is true, the entire field of microeconomics needs to be re-constructed from scratch. Nonetheless, it was summarily rejected by a large number of top journals, before being eventually published by Jack...

The economists' dilemma: If economic methodology doesn't base itself on assumptions common to the hard sciences, like homogeneity, additivity, transitivity, etc, then it won't be considered a real science. On the other hand, if economists ignore reflexivity, downward causation in systems, synergy, and other factors that affect individuals who are socially embedded, its output will not fit reality and it will appear lack empirical foundation, not to mention disappointing raised expectations...

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)....

My issues with Dirk Bezemer's academic credibility seem to have nudged the Post Keynesian hornets' nest such that they seemed to assume I was attacking Post Keynesianism in general, which I gladly took on because one thing that I really do dislike is cult-like adherence to ideology regardless of what that ideology is. But first let me clarify a few things.… For those following this. Boiling it down in this post, he is saying to Post Keynesians, convince me and remember that I am a working...

Most still clueless? Bruegel Did Economics Fail? Sylvia Mercler See also I haven't read Phil's book yet but it looks interesting. He explored a lot of the issues at his blog, Fixing the Economists, which has been inactive for some time. The Reformation in Economics is a book written by the Irish economist Philip Pilkington. It is a book that aims to deconstruct contemporary neoclassical economic theory in order to determine to what extent it is scientific and to what extent it is...

Assumptions, metrics, empirics, historical ignorance, assuming the conclusion — let me count the ways. Anyways, I want to focus on the failure of economic theory. I think any well-trained economist in some field knows how to tweak assumptions to get any results that they want. Start with a model of perfect competition. Add an information asymmetry, a transaction cost, a search cost, sticky prices and a Calvo fairy, some monopoly or monopsony, whatever. Then you can argue that some policy...

“The test of science is its ability to predict”— Richard Feynman Is economics "cargo cult science" (Richard Feynman)? Of course, as I point out in my forthcoming book Quantum Economics, economics should not be compared directly with weather forecasting. For one thing, the fact that economists’ predictions and models affect the economy (the financial crisis of 2008 for example was in part caused by faulty economic risk models) means that their responsibility is more like that of engineers or...

A statistics professor looks at the economics profession. This is an awkward topic to write about. I’m not saying I think economists are mean people; they just seem to have a default mode of thought which is a little perverse. In the traditional view of Freudian psychiatrists, which no behavior can be taken at face value, and it takes a Freudian analyst to decode the true meaning. Similarly, in the world of pop economics, or neoclassical economics, any behavior that might seem good, or...