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from Lars Syll Axioms of ‘internal consistency’ of choice, such as the weak and the strong axioms of revealed preference … are often used in decision theory, micro-economics, game theory, social choice theory, and in related disciplines … Can a set of choices really be seen as consistent or inconsistent on purely internal grounds, without bringing in something external to choice, such as the underlying objectives or values that are pursued or acknowledged by choice? … The presumption of...

from Asad Zaman In this sequence of posts, I will go through a recent paper of mine, which explains that BOTH of the currently dominant approaches to probability are deeply, fundamentally, and irreparably flawed. The reason for this is that probability is a real-world phenomenon which is unobservable and unmeasurable. The early 20th Century foundations for probability were built at a time when logical positivism was dominant as the philosophy of science. Furthermore, despite its...

Here are four propositions about voting behavior which, as far as I can tell, have been true in nearly all democratic countries for at least the past 50 years. Other things equal, people are more likely to vote for conservative parties if: They have higher incomesThey have lower educationThey live in rural areas or small townsThey are members of a dominant racial/religious groupBy contrast, lot of commentary on recent electoral losses for the left seems to start from the presumption...

from Dean Baker Economists are continually developing new statistical techniques, at least some of which are useful for analyzing data in ways that allow us to learn new things about the world. While developing these new techniques can often be complicated, there are many simple things about the world that economists tend to overlook. The most important example here is the housing bubble in the last decade. It didn’t require any complicated statistical techniques to recognize that house...

from Lars Syll The other day, on my way home on the train after having attended an economics conference, yours truly tried to beguile the way by listening to a podcast of EconTalk where Garett Jones of George Mason University talked with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the ideas of Irving Fisher on debt and deflation. Jones’s thoughts on Fisher were thought-provoking and interesting, but in the middle of the discussion Roberts started to ask questions on the relation between Fisher’s...

from Peter Soderbaum There is a tendency in mainstream neoclassical economics to claim value-neutrality. Economics is believed to be close to natural sciences where the scholar is standing outside observing what goes on in the economy. It is believed that experiments can meaningfully be carried out to arrive at “evidence-based” results. There is a focus on markets and markets are understood in terms of supply and demand as mechanistic forces. While reference to more than one perspective...

from Blair Fix Let’s talk sustainability. Unless you’re an anti-science crank, you probably agree that we’ve got a problem with carbon emissions. We need to drastically cut emissions to avoid catastrophic climate change. On this we should all agree. The question that’s open for debate is how to cut emissions. I think we actually know very little about how do to this. But even worse than knowing little is thinking we know a lot when we don’t. As the old saying goes, “It ain’t what you...

from Lars Syll Submission to observed or experimental data is the golden rule which dominates any scientific discipline. Any theory whatever, if it is not verified by empirical evidence, has no scientific value and should be rejected. Maurice Allais Formalistic deductive “Glasperlenspiel” can be very impressive and seductive. But in the realm of science, it ought to be considered of little or no value to simply make claims about the model and lose sight of reality. Mainstream —...

from Grazia Ietto-Gillies Digitalization has been with us for a couple of decades and is now all pervasive. It affects every sphere of economic activity: from production to consumption to the interaction between the State and its citizens. The latter interaction is in terms of: the delivery of public services; the collection of revenue; and the development and implementation of public policies. The transnational companies (TNCs) have been with us for much longer. Steven Hymer (1976...