Tag Archives: Economics

So much for pluralism … It comes as no surprise to me—but it probably does to everyone outside of economics—that a senior lecturer at the University of Glasgow, Alberto Paloni, an expert in post-Keynesian theory, has been stopped from teaching a core degree module on macroeconomics. This, after an essay in the Royal Economic Society newsletter specifically cited Paloni’s course as introducing a necessary pluralism into the teaching of economics … All Paloni did was teach students some Post...

Lucas’ FORTRAN caricature of economics Lucas … internalized the caricature he extracted from Samuelson’s Foundations: that mathematical analysis is the only legitimate way of doing economic theory, and that, in particular, the essence of macroeconomics consists in a combination of axiomatic formalism and philosophical reductionism (microfoundationalism). For Lucas, the only scientifically legitimate macroeconomic models are those that can be deduced from the axiomatized...

  Back in the 80’s yours truly had the pleasure of studying German at University of Vienna. A wonderful town full of history and Kaffeehäuser. I’m really looking forward to visiting it again. In case you can’t be there, here’s an admittedly insufficient substitute, but still …  [embedded content]

Life Among the Econ A comparison of status relationships in the different “fields” shows a definite common pattern. The dominant feature, which makes status relations among the Econ of unique interest to the serious student, is the way that status is tied to the manufacture of certain types of implements called “modls.” The status of the adult male is determined by his skill at making the “modl” of his “field.” The facts (a) that the Econ are highly status-motivated, (b) that status is...

Frank Ackerman on general equilibrium theory General equilibrium is fundamental to economics on a more normative level as well. A story about Adam Smith, the invisible hand, and the merits of markets pervades introductory textbooks, classroom teaching, and contemporary political discourse. The intellectual foundation of this story rests on general equilibrium, not on the latest mathematical excursions. If the foundation of everyone’s favourite economics story is now known to be unsound —...

The biggest mistake in the history of macroeconomic thought The Keynesian economics of the General Theory is static. It purports to explain how employment, GDP and the interest rate are determined at one weekly meeting, taking the price level as fixed. Modern macroeconomics is dynamic. It purports to explain how employment, GDP, the interest rate and the price level are determined in a sequence of weekly meetings. To knit together the temporary one-week Keynesian equilibria, Samuelson, in...

The euro — a Reaganomics wet dream There are obviously still a lot of economists out there who do not accept the conventional wisdom that the euro is a bad idea. However, there seems to be some rather basic facts about optimal currency areas that all economists would perhaps be wise to consider … The idea that the euro has “failed” is dangerously naive. The euro is doing exactly what its progenitor – and the wealthy 1%-ers who adopted it – predicted and planned for it to do. That...

Why ‘Economics and Reality’ is on my top 10 list For a good many years, Tony Lawson has been urging economists to pay attention to their ontological presuppositions. Economists have not paid much attention, perhaps because few of us know what “ontology” means. This branch of philosophy stresses the need to “grasp the nature of the reality” that is the object of study – and to adapt one’s methods of inquiry to it. Economics, it might be argued, has gotten this backwards. We have imposed our...

Why Africa is so poor A few years ago, two economics professors, Quamrul Ashraf and Oded Galor, published a paper, “The ‘Out of Africa’ Hypothesis, Human Genetic Diversity, and Comparative Economic Development,” that drew inferences about poverty and genetics based on a statistical pattern … When the paper by Ashraf and Galor came out, I criticized it from a statistical perspective, questioning what I considered its overreach in making counterfactual causal claims … I argued (and continue...

The long run fallacy It appears to me that one great cause of our difference in opinion, on the subjects which we have so often discussed, is that you have always in your mind the immediate and temporary effects of particular changes—whereas I put these immediate and temporary effects quite aside, and fix my whole attention on the permanent state of things which will result from them. Letter from Ricardo to Malthus January 1817 On this issue Keynes agreed with Malthus, and it was probably...