jaimelannister

I apologise to Humanomics for the name calling, that was unnecessary and hypocritical, but I stand by my arguments regarding the appeal to authority.

chateauheart, From your wikipedia link, ‘The strength of this argument depends upon two factors: The authority is a legitimate expert on the subject. A consensus exists among legitimate experts on the matter under discussion.’ Maybe I wasn’t very clear about whose authority Humanomics was appealing to that I’m referring to. With respect to point 1 to quote Humanomics: 'If people who know more than me didn’t tell me what to do and not to waste time on, I would never get any thinking done' and '[v]irtually all the reading I’ve done for two years revolves around their questions.' With respect to point 2: Again quoting Humanomics, 'and though it is popular, it is wrong - do not read WNF by D&R'. You can judge for yourself if points 1 and 2 are met.

Err, chateauheart I’m different to the poster who refers to AER and QJE. Appeals to authority, e.g. 'If people who know more than me didn' tell me what to and not to waste time on, I would never get any thinking done', various name and journal dropping in the later post, arguments by which you can’t judge cogent of themselves without checking sources.

I got nothing against recommending things, what peeves me of is assertions that some research program is wrong through appeals to authority. The research in political economy, development, innovation, like much of econ is hardly beyond consensus, yet if OP is to believe you, you’re version of events is right and A&R is wrong. The only way people can be sure if you’re making coherent and substantive arguments or just BSing is to go check the sources for themselves, i.e. read A&R and your sources. It’s just a personal opinion but telling someone they shouldn’t read a view opposite to your own is immature and anti-intellectual.

James Robinson has a Phd Econ from Yale. Taught in econ departments before switching to poli sic department. Political economics/positive political theory/political economy overlap content wise however they’re unified in the methodological tools they use. No shame in switching. Also I disagree about WNF. It’s not an academic book (it’s for laypersons) but decent read none the less. Regardless, It’s intellectual arrogance to dissuade someone from reading a work just because you disagree with it.

Yes, I agree. On a tangent, I’ve come to understand why emjr are so hostile to econ undergrads.

Not necessarily. The behaviour can be still be 'transitive' (trivially at least) by specifying the choice as a tuple of the original choice and time. But this just illustrates the point RCT is just maths. You can add bells and whistles to the underlying model but there must be a purpose to it otherwise it can add a cost without much gain. Modelling behaviour with hyperbolic discounting may be pertinent to some applications but for a lot of cases I think making the standard assumptions is fine.

Yes, I think economists can gain a lot from learning a bit about evolution theory. People might be surprised in how both fields have in common.

I half disagree with the comments about EJMR. Most of the comments on EJMR is trash but sometimes you get intelligent debates going on. Compared to the comments section in MR and WCI, there are much higher proportion (i.e. 95%+) of grad/postgrad econ who actually know what they’re talking about (as opposed to think they know what they’re talking about). Wrt EJMR unless you're a grad or post-grad, DO NOT ask questions or engage in debates.

Rational choice is just a mathematical model. To paraphrase PK, we’re the master, mathematics is our servant. If the model is inconsistent with the facts then we can change/discard and get a new model. In fact, there are models where choices are 'based on habit and social norms and asymmetrical information'. I’m a big fan of Bowles+Gintis and they model choices based on social norms etc. and guess what? They use rational choice as a foundation. Now I don’t know how people actually make decisions but I wouldn’t be so sure that there isn’t a process, biological or otherwise, that calculates cost/benefit. I’m starting to read in evolutionary biology (due to Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis) and my gut tells me that we may able to justify rational choice through evolution i.e. maximise fitness etc. Evolution theorists use game theory so it’s not like it’s only economists who believe in utility (it’s just that evolution theorists call it 'fitness'). Also I want to apologise for my snakiness in my earlier comment. It was unnecessary.

RonSwanson have you heard of political economy? What about Mancur Olson, Gordon Tullock, Duncan Black, James Buchanan, Anthony Black, and more contemporary political economists such as Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson. Then there's Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis (albeit unorthodox though not heterodox) who publish in top evolutionary biology as well as econ journals + incorporate 'social interaction' into their research. Then there's the field network economics and new institutional economics. Economics is a broad discipline where economists already work in fields studying feedback between econ/political/social systems. Fortunately the discipline operates in a vacumm only in your mind. With respect to the cheapshot at utlity, you need come with a more substantive argument than it's antiquated.

From a political economy perspective, Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson, 'Why Nations Fail', is great. In general, I find blogs are the best (in terms of quality, breadth, and accessibility) for intuition.

The post is by the student not Professor Gans, so in fact if it is interesting contrary to TM knowledge that minimum you need x amount of maths.

The first option is the path a TMer Chicunomics took. Here is a guide he wrote up that you might find relevant: Advice for Prospective Graduate Students - Mark Chicu. My personal opinion is unless you find you really like mathematics go the first option. Taking the second option requires weighing up an extra year worth of opportunity cost. If you go the second route I would change the major to Statistics/Stochastic Processes rather than Pure maths. Stats/Stochastic processes are going to be more useful than geometry unless you plan to do research in an area requiring geometry etc.!

Err, people do know the difference between positive and normative economics right? Just because we assume people are a*holes in models doesn’t mean we have to act like one in real life. In fact I would say acting a*hole in real life is a strictly dominated strategy. Also economics is not about money.