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.

*thumbs up*

On second reading, yes, embarrassed to say sarcasm meter broken.

People have different moral/ethical code, for some people, ala Zeno, accepting an offer then withdrawing an offer may be a disutility for moral/ethical reasons. You’re saying it’s ‘irrational’ and not ‘maximising utility’ from your personal values but you can’t say that from Zeno’s point of view. Personally I would be reluctant to accept an offer with the intention of withdrawing if a better offer comes along unless it is standard procedure or an norm to do so in the circumstances. Just my 2cents.

A checklist of types of proof you should learn how to construct and when they can be used: contrapositive proofs, proof by induction, and proof by contradiction. Direct proofs obviously as well. Also a lot of proofs may involve *tricks* and tedious algebraic manipulation.

I own Apostol *3* though I’ve never studied it from it. Apostol is definitely real analysis and can be used as a substitute for baby Rudin. Someone whose actually used it can better tell you whether it’s rigor is above/equal/below Rudin but from flicking through it it looks about the same. Calculus from any text is recommended knowledge but not a prerequisite for RA. How easy/difficult studying RA really comes down to the amount of experience you’ve had with proofs. If you’ve done the proof exercises in Apostol 1 then tackling RA will be easier. Even if you have never seen a mathematical proof in your life you can still study RA as for a lot students that is the first time they learn to construct rigorous proofs. The reason why some students find RA particularly hard is because (1) they aren’t use to set notation; and (2) it’s their first contact with rigorous proofs. Once you get over those initial hurdles it’s no difficult than studying any other subject. Because of this I recommend you go straight on to RA even if you’ve had limited experience with proofs. There’s is no point in mucking about with Calc 2 level proofs by going through Apostol I if you’ve already done Calc 2 from Stewart as you will have to learn to do rigorous proofs in RA anyway. If it’s your first encounter with rigorous proof I definitely wouldn’t recommend baby Rudin. While I personally haven’t used any of the following I’ve been told they’re easier than Apostol 3/baby Rudin so you might want to check them out and see which one fits your needs: Mathematical Analysis by Binmore Introduction to Real Analysis by Bartle Analysis by Steven Lay

Perloff was the prescribed text for my intermediate micro class. TBH I hated it, thought it was to wordy and their wasn’t enough mathematics or the maths was shoddy/non-rigorous. I actually ended up buying Nicholson on my own after reading Amazon reviews. I like Nicholson but think it’s good for students who’ve already taken Calc I&II. I think anyone else would hate it. Other intermediate micro. books I’ve skimmed though but haven’t used but would recommend (as supplements to Nicholson) nonetheless are: 'Exchange and Production’ by Alchian and Allen (out of print; can get second hand via e.g. amazon); and 'The Applied Theory of Price' by Donald/Deirdre McCloskey (out of print but author provides free online here).

Something out of left field for those that might be interested in ‘political economy’, ‘Microeconomics: Behavior, Institutions, and Evolution’ by Samuel Bowles. Hard to describe, brings together eclectic set of modelling approaches (the main ones are behavioral economic, evolutionary game theory, mechanism design, and of course price theory) in a coherent, systematic, and structured manner to describe a theory of ‘institutions’ (where markets, governments, community/social norms are examples of specific types of ‘institutions’), the interaction between institution types, and their evolution over time. Prerequisites: Intermediate micro, intro game theory (above the amount taught in intermediate micro)., and maths maturity at real analysis level to understand everything in the book. The minimum needed to get something out of book: reading comprehension. There’s a fair bit of maths in here but all the mathematical models/arguments are also (in addition to the written descriptions of the models) presented in laypersons readable prose. Marketed as a ‘textbook’ but reads like a treatise. Maybe this says more about me than the book but thought this was one of the best/most thought provoking books I’ve read (so far to date). Definitely won’t help in admissions but worth a read if you feel there is something ‘missing’ from your typical econ education.

Isn’t finance just a subset of microeconomics? Maybe I’m wrong but I got the impression financial economics = finance except financial economics is what economists in econ faculty do and finance is what economists in the finance faculty do.

I’m a big fan of Acemoglu especially his work on institutions/politics. It’s to bad he doesn’t have a blog.

What’s your background AndrewC? Given your interest in pursuing a econ phd I presume you have at least studied econ at undergrad? Personally, I think The Economist. WSJ, and NYT is news and while may have some ‘economics’ related content is not really going to make you ‘think’ like an economist. If you’re only looking for light reading then there are any number of blogs by economists, some that come to mind, cheaptalk.org, marginalrevolution.com, worthwhile.typepad.com, and as already mentioned gregmankiw.blogspot.com. Some blogs by econ phd student I follow are noahopinion.blogspot.com, afinetheorem.wordpress.com, mattrognlie.com.