tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post4472474634343299150..comments2024-03-28T03:16:14.104-04:00Comments on Noahpinion: Three cheers for Sargent & Sims, one and a half for the "Economics Nobel"Noah Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09093917601641588575noreply@blogger.comBlogger18125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-28915545324135782792012-09-28T10:42:54.280-04:002012-09-28T10:42:54.280-04:00Thomas Sargent and Chris Sims are geniuses. I'...Thomas Sargent and Chris Sims are geniuses. I'm still blown away by the Vector Autoregression created by Chris. Mikehttp://www.rawhoney.canoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-8111130460336916802011-11-02T11:54:09.791-04:002011-11-02T11:54:09.791-04:00I'd be interested to hear how you get a model ...I'd be interested to hear how you get a model or data to have correlations greater than 1.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-19067700881866333352011-10-14T20:13:09.304-04:002011-10-14T20:13:09.304-04:00"As a result, although Sargent is typically i..."As a result, although Sargent is typically identified with the "freshwater" or "rational expectations" school of thought, his hardheaded empiricism was actually somewhat of a thorn in the side of the original RBC guys (Lucas and Prescott), who went so far as to ask him to stop testing their models!"<br /><br />This is just false. <br />Get the original interview to Sargent here: https://files.nyu.edu/ts43/public/research/SargentinterviewMD.pdf<br />The quote is taken from here:<br />"Evans and Honkapohja: What were the profession’s most important responses<br />to the Lucas Critique?<br />Sargent: There were two. The first and most optimistic response was complete rational expectations econometrics. A rational expectations equilibrium is a<br />likelihood function. Maximize it.<br />Evans and Honkapohja: Why optimistic?<br />Sargent: You have to believe in your model to use the likelihood function. It<br />provides a coherent way to estimate objects of interest (preferences, technologies,<br />information sets, measurement processes) within the context of a trusted model.<br />Evans and Honkapohja: What was the second response?<br />Sargent: Various types of calibration. Calibration is less optimistic about what<br />your theory can accomplish because you’d only use it if you didn’t fully trust<br />your entire model, meaning that you think your model is partly misspecified or<br />incompletely specified, or if you trusted someone else’s model and data set more<br />than your own. My recollection is that Bob Lucas and Ed Prescott were initially<br />very enthusiastic about rational expectations econometrics. After all, it simply<br />involved imposing on ourselves the same high standards we had criticized the<br />Keynesians for failing to live up to. But after about five years of doing likelihood<br />ratio tests on rational expectations models, I recall Bob Lucas and Ed Prescott<br />both telling me that those tests were rejecting too many good models. The idea<br />of calibration is to ignore some of the probabilistic implications of your model<br />but to retain others. Somehow, calibration was intended as a balanced response<br />to professing that your model, though not correct, is still worthy as a vehicle for<br />quantitative policy analysis."Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-23374992626800532212011-10-13T17:44:32.424-04:002011-10-13T17:44:32.424-04:00@Noah: It's not just the Fields. Hardy thought...@Noah: It's not just the Fields. Hardy thought that mathematical life ended at 40 and was quite vocal about that. Of course, he also thought that mathematics should be abstract and "useless". Which is funny since one of his most widely appreciated results is a very simple concrete application to the study of genetics. I do think that one should note the irony of the Abel prize. A career achievement award named after a man who died at 25. If only they would have settled on the Galois Prize.nkhhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12064234688583962535noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-41309613073484028402011-10-13T07:27:39.618-04:002011-10-13T07:27:39.618-04:00It's a very rare 'Anonymous' who has a...It's a very rare 'Anonymous' who has anything worth listening to.Barry DeCiccohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04735814736387033844noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-27025664395714927352011-10-12T23:03:12.700-04:002011-10-12T23:03:12.700-04:00It's very interesting that you think that, mos...It's very interesting that you think that, most recent Anonymous, given that Noah has a degree in theoretical physics. Maybe you don't think physics is a good example of what science looks like, but I'm willing to bet you don't have much company in that.rosebriarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02229537505859471832noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-5076066148377516742011-10-12T01:43:08.926-04:002011-10-12T01:43:08.926-04:00The big problem here is that you have no idea what...The big problem here is that you have no idea what science looks like in domains of essentially complex phenomena where explanations of the prinicple are the rule and not the exception.<br /><br />I.e. you have no idea what a successful science of economics would be, because you begin with a patently false picture of what "science" is taken from a one sided dieted and a poverty of examplesAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-41480873541221261622011-10-12T01:38:43.412-04:002011-10-12T01:38:43.412-04:00You are talking out of the back of your pants.
Te...You are talking out of the back of your pants.<br /><br />Tell that to Gerald Edelman or Charles Darwin, etc.:<br /><br />" In biology, a new technique that leads to no new empirically verified discoveries (or demonstrably useful technologies) is just not that interesting."Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-8793788311888439432011-10-12T01:33:34.324-04:002011-10-12T01:33:34.324-04:00What in the world do you know aboit "testing ...What in the world do you know aboit "testing a 'model' in biology"?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-10081313118201109452011-10-11T23:27:49.619-04:002011-10-11T23:27:49.619-04:00OT, but I'm new here -- what did (do?) you thi...OT, but I'm new here -- what did (do?) you think of Adair Turner's address to the INET conference <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eU7UdI41Pu4" rel="nofollow">here</a>. He seems like the most sophisticated guy out there talking about these issues today. But, then, I hardly know them all. thanks,Luke Leahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11290760894780619646noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-64115487725029892312011-10-11T15:49:47.740-04:002011-10-11T15:49:47.740-04:00DealWithIt said...
" This is an awful sel...DealWithIt said...<br /><br />" This is an awful selective overview of a prize for a man who went a great deal of the way towards burying Keynes, or at least the Keynes of the 1960s. This was very, very clearly a prize for freshwater macro."<br /><br />And how has his work stood up?Barry DeCiccohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04735814736387033844noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-24114698211799675832011-10-11T13:54:33.374-04:002011-10-11T13:54:33.374-04:00This is an awful selective overview of a prize for...This is an awful selective overview of a prize for a man who went a great deal of the way towards burying Keynes, or at least the Keynes of the 1960s. This was very, very clearly a prize for freshwater macro.<br /><br />http://i.imgur.com/oxTYX.gif<br /><br />"Sorry, Art, but aside from the foolish and intellectually lazy remark about mathematics, all of the criticisms that you have listed reflect either woeful ignorance or intentional disregard for what much of modern macroeconomics is about and what it has accomplished. That said, it is true that modern macroeconomics uses mathematics and statistics to understand behavior in situations where there is uncertainty about how the future will unfold from the past. But a rule of thumb is that the more dynamic, uncertain and ambiguous is the economic environment that you seek to model, the more you are going to have to roll up your sleeves, and learn and use some math. That’s life."<br />-Thomas Sargent, in an interview at History's Most Evil Regional Fed BankDealWithItnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-73909770035496127442011-10-11T12:12:59.132-04:002011-10-11T12:12:59.132-04:00@nkh: It's not me who thinks mathematicians di...@nkh: It's not me who thinks mathematicians die at 40, it's the Fields Medal. Which is why the Fields Medal is dumb. And the science Nobels are dumb for not having any kind of posthumous version of the prize, meaning that Emmy Noether, Chien-Shiung Wu, and Lise Meitner will forever be relegated to second-class status by the sexism of the early 20th Century.<br /><br />Oh, and <a href="http://mleddy.blogspot.com/2009/02/richard-feynman-on-honors.html" rel="nofollow">all prizes are dumb, period</a>.Noah Smithhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09093917601641588575noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-953252344982229792011-10-11T10:03:41.997-04:002011-10-11T10:03:41.997-04:00"In 40 years the profession may have complete..."In 40 years the profession may have completely abandoned DSGE, but Ed Prescott's Nobel will stand forever."<br /><br />All right, <em>now</em> I'm depressed.Ken Houghtonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01440837287933536370noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-61059683960110037702011-10-11T08:51:09.924-04:002011-10-11T08:51:09.924-04:00The Fields is a 'lifetime achievement' awa...The Fields is a 'lifetime achievement' award only if you assume life stops at 40. I think you might mean the Abel Prize.nkhhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12064234688583962535noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-59899381182567562292011-10-11T08:50:28.636-04:002011-10-11T08:50:28.636-04:00This comment has been removed by the author.nkhhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12064234688583962535noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-88959979503674074542011-10-11T07:45:12.326-04:002011-10-11T07:45:12.326-04:00Good post. It would be interesting if we got to a...Good post. It would be interesting if we got to an empirical macro world... I hope I will see it in my professional lifetime (hasn't started yet, really).<br /><br />Do you have any comments re: Jeffrey Sachs' recent articles or his just published book, "The Price of Civilization"? It's bound to be rather topical at the moment. He recently posted an article called "A New Direction for American Economic Policy" on the Huffington Post. Interesting read, basically making an argument for increased public investment in things like education and infrastructure and... strangely enough the idea of paying for them through taxes!<br /><br />I made a blog post partially in response at http://socialmacro.blogspot.com/Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14235846531323511190noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-31617410659615740752011-10-10T20:52:21.869-04:002011-10-10T20:52:21.869-04:00"What people need to understand about the &qu..."What people need to understand about the "Economics Nobel" is that it is not a prize for a specific discovery, ... It is more of a lifetime achievement award, like the Fields Medal in mathematics."<br /><br />Or like the Nobel for literature?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com