tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post905948737516612056..comments2024-03-28T03:16:14.104-04:00Comments on Noahpinion: Republic of Science or Empire of Ideology?Noah Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09093917601641588575noreply@blogger.comBlogger37125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-49176159765511130232016-10-07T00:12:47.468-04:002016-10-07T00:12:47.468-04:00Towering figure--
Appeal to authority logical pha...Towering figure--<br /><br />Appeal to authority logical phallicy {oops} right there.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-5019023557744637512016-06-14T15:59:28.664-04:002016-06-14T15:59:28.664-04:00Currently the net value of social science academic...Currently the net value of social science academic output in America is actually negative. That is, most social science research right now is devoted to denying things that are clearly true, a kind of apologetics for the empirically false parts of leftist theology.<br />Dannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-4902715451117689422016-06-14T15:56:18.123-04:002016-06-14T15:56:18.123-04:00"Many social science disciplines - anthropolo..."Many social science disciplines - anthropology, urban studies, social psychology, and probably sociology - seem to have been captured by leftist ideology to a greater degree than econ was ever captured by libertarianism, even in the 70s and 80s."<br /><br />I totally disagree with Koch. He is trying to improve things from the inside.<br /><br />His money would be better spent ridiculing higher education and encouraging people to avoid it.<br /><br /><br />Dannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-68955875119306205242016-06-13T02:35:45.133-04:002016-06-13T02:35:45.133-04:00This distinction between the disinterested, carefu...This distinction between the disinterested, careful researchers and paid policy stooges assumes, at its bottom, the effort-precision heuristic: better effort/careful research yields better optimal rules. However, this does not obtain in many Econ fields, and especially in macro. Simple biased rules perform better across various environments. <br />That's the real advantage of the naive libertarianism: parsimony. <br />Bias is worth it if it gives us variance reduction.Krzyshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15794655390770135247noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-7236796238111631682016-06-13T02:30:49.852-04:002016-06-13T02:30:49.852-04:00This distinction between the disinterested, carefu...This distinction between the disinterested, careful researchers and paid policy stooges assumes, at its bottom, the effort-precision heuristic: better effort/careful research yields better optimal rules. However, this does not obtain in many Econ fields, and especially in macro. Simple biased rules perform better across various environments. <br />That's the real advantage of the naive libertarianism: parsimony. <br />Bias is worth it if it gives us variance reduction.Krzyshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15794655390770135247noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-14492421697084748542016-06-11T12:00:41.253-04:002016-06-11T12:00:41.253-04:00"Whatever it is, though, I don't like it...."Whatever it is, though, I don't like it." <br /><br />I guess it depends what criteria you are using. The ideas promoted by Koch will either survive in the marketplace of ideas, or not. DSGE models did not survive in the marketplace of ideas. <br /><br />The solution to speech and research you don't like is more research that attempts to debunk those ideas. The problem with the introduction of psychology and behavioral finance into economics is that it provides a solid foundation for confirmation bias, not a foundation for science. "People are not rational" is too often code for "Those people think differently than me and I don't understand it." Macroeconomist in general vastly overstate how much we know about the world. Far too often, social science cannot be replicated. <br /><br />Regardless of Koch's financing or not, economics needs to focus on replicatable research. Randomized controlled trials. <br /><br />No one suffers from a healthy debate. Money might be able to buy a bunch of PhD's who can make a very persuasive case. That is a feature, not a bug. Hopefully people will step up to the challenge. <br /><br />I think that the problem with academic economists (of all stripes, "fresh" and "salt" water) is that they are far too wed to their own ideas and not sufficiently wed to the process of research. dwbhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02799793864068767226noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-81549916902787258372016-06-11T10:04:55.026-04:002016-06-11T10:04:55.026-04:00Economics: A cargo cult science from the very begi...Economics: A cargo cult science from the very beginning<br />Comment on Noah Smith on ‘Republic of Science or Empire of Ideology?’<br /><br />You complain about the influence of Koch money on economics and conclude: “The end result could be two econ professions — a dispassionate, truth-seeking one occupying the upper levels of the ivory tower, at MIT and Princeton and Stanford, doing hard math things and careful honest data work that slowly trickles out through traditional media channels...and a second econ profession in the lower-ranked schools, doing a slightly fancier version of the kind of political advocacy now done by conservative think tanks.”<br /><br />The fault in your argument is that it suggests that what goes on in the upper level of the ivory tower is science. It is not. Economics has never risen above the level of a proto-science. This is the core problem. Compared to this, the fact that part of the scientific garbage produced by economists has been sponsored by millionaires and billionaires is a minor point.<br /><br />First of all, it is of utmost importance to distinguish between political and theoretical economics. The main differences are: (i) The goal of political economics is to push an agenda, the goal of theoretical economics is to explain how the actual economy works. (ii) In political economics anything goes; in theoretical economics scientific standards are observed.<br /><br />Theoretical economics has to be judged according to the criteria true/false and nothing else. The history of political economics, on the other hand, can be summarized as the perpetual violation of well-defined scientific standards.<br /><br />The fact of the matter is that theoretical economics has from the very beginning been captured by the agenda pushers of political economics. Smith and Mill fought for Liberalism, Ricardo, Marx and Keynes were agenda pushers, so were Hayek and Friedman, and so are Krugman and Varoufakis. Not one of the political economists and agenda pushers from Smith onward will in the final assessment be accepted as scientist.<br /><br />Political economists of all stripes are characterized by four common traits:<br />(i) They are mainly occupied with sociology, psychology, anthropology, political science, history, law/institutions, evolution theory, social philosophy, etcetera. That is, they miss the essentials of economics proper.*<br />(ii) They use theoretical economics as a means/support for their agenda. By this, they abuse science unknowingly or knowingly.<br />(iii) As far as they have tried to underpin their agenda theoretically it can be rigorously demonstrated in each case that their approaches lack formal and material consistency.**<br />(iv) They have no idea about how the actual economy works.***<br /><br />It is not decisive what the political agenda is: ALL of political economics is cargo cult science (Feynman’s term). Political economics has not produced anything of real scientific value since Adam Smith. After more than 200 years of dilettantism and failure there is no place for the political economists of Walrasianism, Keynesianism, Marxianism, and Austrianism among the sciences.****<br /><br />The rules of conduct of the scientific community demand that the actual state of economics is at all times unambiguously communicated to the general public. This implies, as the VERY FIRST step, that the word sciences is deleted from the “Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel”.<br /><br />Egmont Kakarot-Handtke<br /><br />* See ‘Economists’ three-layered scientific incompetence’<br />http://axecorg.blogspot.de/2016/02/economists-three-layered-scientific.html<br />** See ‘On economists’ stupidity’<br />http://axecorg.blogspot.de/2016/02/on-economists-stupidity.html<br />*** See ‘How the intelligent non-economist can refute every economist hands down’<br />http://axecorg.blogspot.de/2015/12/how-intelligent-non-economist-can.html<br />**** For more about Political Economics see cross-references<br />http://axecorg.blogspot.de/2015/11/political-economics-cross-references.htmlAXEC / E.K-Hhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10402274109039114416noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-90920481453987328002016-06-10T13:44:47.106-04:002016-06-10T13:44:47.106-04:00John M Olin was deliberately doing this first.
Ric...John M Olin was deliberately doing this first.<br />Richard Mellon Scaife deliberately did this second.<br />They were both very succesful.<br />Of course Charles Koch is using the same playbook.Nathanaelnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-25784454873762280432016-06-09T18:22:41.063-04:002016-06-09T18:22:41.063-04:00I've been writing about the Koch attempt to es...I've been writing about the Koch attempt to essentially buy the econ department at Western Carolina University. This is a school that doesn't even have an econ major yet the Kochs want to fund something called the Center for Free Enterprise.<br />Basically this comes down to the fact that a couple of faculty members who are products of Mercatus and GMU have actively sought Koch support. One need only look at the syllabi of these professors to see that they are heavily invested in promoting Koch sponsored institutions like Mercatus, and MRU. Citations in their papers tend to be circular or focused heavily on institutions like the Tax Foundation that receive heavy financial support from the Kochs and the anonymous political arm Donors Trust.<br />I have no problem with the idea of teaching Friedman, Hayek, and even Von Mises but add a little balance and context and by all means demonstrate by data or at least example how the predictions of some of these sources mark to market.<br />Edward Lopez, the prospective director of the Koch sponsored CFE, gives lots of speeches for Koch and Art Pope (North Carolina's baby Koch) sponsored astro-turf groups - really hard at times to tell who he works for and whether he's an academic doing scholarship or an academic or an advocate selling a particular political brand. In a passage from his book "Madmen, Intellectuals and Academic Scribblers" Lopez offers and earlier version of the attack on Keynes's sexuality that caused such a stir when Nial ferguson raised the issue. Lopez writes: “He even took both sides in love, not terribly unusual among intellectuals of his circles in that day. As a young scholar Keynes had male lovers, including the writer and critic Lytton Strachey. But, like Pareto, he later married a Russian woman, the ballerina Lydia Lopokova.”<br />I’m not sure what Dr. Lopez hoped to accomplish with this observation, but for the life of me I can’t understand what Keynes’s sexual preferences or Russian wife tell us about his economic thinking.<br />At many institutions that have accepted Koch grants a condition has been approval of hires. Even when that's not the case the hires come from a tight group mostly with GMU and Mercatus backgrounds.<br />The Smoky Mountain News has done a good job of covering the situation at Western Carolina.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09777496716266105669noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-74839377648473433682016-06-09T16:16:39.960-04:002016-06-09T16:16:39.960-04:00@ProGrowthLiberal: Me thinks you have trouble wit...@ProGrowthLiberal: Me thinks you have trouble with reading comprehension. Piketty presents a lot of data, but then throws his own ideas onto the data which are backed by nothing but his ideas and opinions. It's one thing to present a lot of data, it's something else to present data and then present your own answer to "fix the problem" despite your answer not being grounded in any data.The Donkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14153840277624094270noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-25648342340522185472016-06-09T12:10:37.757-04:002016-06-09T12:10:37.757-04:00Piketty presented no data? Me thinks you have not...Piketty presented no data? Me thinks you have not read his work.ProGrowthLiberalhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17138489390594441753noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-87032587827887492582016-06-09T12:09:09.840-04:002016-06-09T12:09:09.840-04:00As a graduate student, I worked on a project funde...As a graduate student, I worked on a project funded by the Ford Foundation. We had no particular political leanings driven by this foundation - at least that I could tell. ProGrowthLiberalhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17138489390594441753noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-71089831725875792432016-06-09T08:51:30.186-04:002016-06-09T08:51:30.186-04:00No problem. Our society will naturally pick the id...No problem. Our society will naturally pick the ideas with the most merit. If we are wrong someone will push eventually push back. More money for universites will never be a problem, I guess we should just hope the rich keep buying yachts. <br /><br />If I ran a mid level university, I would accept the money in a second unless I thought it could hurt in another area. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-52477774228046584862016-06-09T08:16:02.206-04:002016-06-09T08:16:02.206-04:00What about the hundreds (thousands?) of university...What about the hundreds (thousands?) of university chairs that are funded by private endowments from wealthy individuals? Isn't this pervasive in the US? Would it not be expected that the values of these benefactors find their way into the prejudices of the incumbents that inhabit these university chairs?<br /><br />HenryAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-61871525140452110402016-06-09T01:17:24.472-04:002016-06-09T01:17:24.472-04:00It's not just that they're employed by BB....It's not just that they're employed by BB. It's that virtually all research is conducted with the goal of being "policy relevant". Why else is an economist relevant but if to provide justification for the planner? That's the basic blue-print underlying most applied theory. We don't need thousands schmucks telling us to "do nothing". <br /><br />It's telling how far things have gone when you have an issue with a paltry $200 million (compared to the many billions coming from the public sector). And yes, money coming from the gov't *is* going to be self-promoting - that's just human nature.edarniwhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17905272341190277475noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-5156759205879854512016-06-08T22:55:22.169-04:002016-06-08T22:55:22.169-04:00Yeah for real. Nick Hanauer needs to throw his mon...Yeah for real. Nick Hanauer needs to throw his money into something like Post Keyensian economics. Bill Gates show throw money into Institutionalism or New Developmentalism, etc.Kainhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09841689865415250256noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-87805201486868489522016-06-08T22:52:54.209-04:002016-06-08T22:52:54.209-04:00Does that include public universities? Or just the...Does that include public universities? Or just the Fed / Government agencies?Kainhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09841689865415250256noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-65828138198357124202016-06-08T20:54:49.721-04:002016-06-08T20:54:49.721-04:00The problem Noah mentions can go both ways. Joseph...The problem Noah mentions can go both ways. Joseph Stiglitz is no doubt a towering figure in economics. His prestige is unquestionable. But he has also supported the economic policies of Venezuela for example, without noticing that the country's macroeconomic management left much to be desired even before the fall in oil prices.<br /><br />We can also make the question of what authority should be given to the pronouncements of ivory tower economists that especialize in very narrow fields, when they make opinions on matters outside their purview. And it is much the case that ivory tower economists are people not much interested in policy matters, because there is not much new theory to develop there. No publicaton will be guaranteed in the most presitgiuos journals if you make case studies of applied theory.<br /><br />The reality is that both camps will exist and will endure. And particular economists will dabble in both. Economics, due to their policy implications, cannot be circunscribed nust to academia.Jorge Fallashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01941115047206445618noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-35366451397128023782016-06-08T19:54:40.776-04:002016-06-08T19:54:40.776-04:00Should we get all of the Koch money out of the art...Should we get all of the Koch money out of the arts as well?The Donkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14153840277624094270noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-70489924958390806802016-06-08T19:53:42.430-04:002016-06-08T19:53:42.430-04:00As if Piketty is objective? He puts a bunch of da...As if Piketty is objective? He puts a bunch of data together and then throws HIS prescription onto it, which isn't backed by any data.The Donkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14153840277624094270noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-66234691394654416522016-06-08T14:49:55.028-04:002016-06-08T14:49:55.028-04:00Warstler, when is your "Uber for government&q...Warstler, when is your "Uber for government" app coming out? Maybe you should be working on getting the bugs out of the code instead of having econ debates! ;-)Noah Smithhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09093917601641588575noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-56486346999694213492016-06-08T14:47:23.903-04:002016-06-08T14:47:23.903-04:00Zathras, this seems right.Zathras, this seems right.Noah Smithhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09093917601641588575noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-81377062626078671752016-06-08T14:40:22.289-04:002016-06-08T14:40:22.289-04:00Nobody has to wonder if apocalyptic pronouncements...Nobody has to wonder if apocalyptic pronouncements of climate change are to protect grant money. The theory is based on the measurable and measured properties of atmospheric gases and the measurable and measured properties of radiation. Unless you think scientists have been lying about those properties for centuries just waiting to cash in on the future climate change gravy train, the idea that it's just a grab for grant money is ludicrous.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-80382926374267605622016-06-08T14:15:16.967-04:002016-06-08T14:15:16.967-04:00Noah,
The govt employs 53% of Economists.
Why ar...Noah,<br /><br />The govt employs 53% of Economists.<br /><br />Why are you not grateful to get at least SOME Econos not sucking on govt teat to feed their family even though the private sector pays ALL of the taxes to feed their families?Morgan Warstlerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04055941003347768891noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-36464535154368171482016-06-08T11:21:31.743-04:002016-06-08T11:21:31.743-04:00For example, another billionaire, John Menard, enc...For example, another billionaire, John Menard, encourage all of his Menards employees to take a Koch-sponsored "civics" course just before the 2012 elections. The course emphasized the Koch libertarian view of economics.<br />http://alternetnews.tumblr.com/post/34705507396/major-retailer-urges-workers-to-take-civicsSonjanoreply@blogger.com