tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post7814379043259471138..comments2024-03-28T03:16:14.104-04:00Comments on Noahpinion: Do the economic facts have a conservative bias?Noah Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09093917601641588575noreply@blogger.comBlogger82125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-26472396722374368092014-02-10T00:29:13.042-05:002014-02-10T00:29:13.042-05:00Reason,
Here you have a representative graph of t...Reason,<br /><br />Here you have a representative graph of the french and swedish catch-up through the early 80's, followed by the long descent since:<br />http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-XWMV7u_4RZM/TXtp0pIqWJI/AAAAAAAAAdM/W5_9ttJzXG0/s1600/france.jpg<br /><br />http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-a_Dr-Qy3g8Q/TXtp_DFrZgI/AAAAAAAAAdU/9mZgX9tdKxQ/s1600/sweden.jpg<br /><br /><br />Again, as the standard conditional convergence arguments would suggest, given how much poorer they are, they should continue catching up instead of falling behind. Pray tell: what happened? <br /><br />Some countries, such as UK or Ireland, have been catching up until the crisis, but his only happened after they opened their economies. Actually, the comparison of Ireland and France is very instructive. In mid 80's the Irish had GDP per head of only 60% of France, now (after the crisis!) they are above 120% of French GDP per head. Krzyshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15794655390770135247noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-89296788786138238652014-02-08T13:30:45.462-05:002014-02-08T13:30:45.462-05:00Not to mention the oil shocks; I've seen time ...Not to mention the oil shocks; I've seen time and time again even economists leaving out little things like a 3x increase in the price of a commodity upon which the 20th century was built.Barry DeCiccohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04735814736387033844noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-19597753061165591652014-02-08T13:29:28.759-05:002014-02-08T13:29:28.759-05:00BTW, the WSJ editorial page played with this idea ...BTW, the WSJ editorial page played with this idea about Canada, not mentioning that as the economy of the USA took off in the mid/late 90's, so did the Canadian economy.Barry DeCiccohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04735814736387033844noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-61928732247419681452014-02-08T13:20:45.003-05:002014-02-08T13:20:45.003-05:00"And a mainstream American conservative may m..."And a mainstream American conservative may make a similar argument about global warming. So then, there is no liberal scientific bias on climate change?"<br /><br />Except for that whole, ah - fact - that people researching global warming are also trying to assess the economic and human impacts.<br /><br />Whereas on the right, the claim that it'll be beneficial is used in parallel with the idea that it's not happening.Barry DeCiccohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04735814736387033844noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-57839606902537629082014-02-08T13:15:29.383-05:002014-02-08T13:15:29.383-05:00In the Free Market USA, we don't use professio...In the Free Market USA, we don't use professionals to tear down the goalposts; volunteers motivated by Gumption, Beer and School Spirit do it :)Barry DeCiccohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04735814736387033844noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-39894900775262562252014-02-07T05:14:59.787-05:002014-02-07T05:14:59.787-05:00You state that with great confidence but provide n...You state that with great confidence but provide no evidence. If there is a difference it is trivial.<br /><br />https://mitpress.mit.edu/sites/default/files/titles/content/9780262025539_sch_0001.pdfreasonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10958786975015285323noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-82085517675869265962014-02-06T23:58:48.803-05:002014-02-06T23:58:48.803-05:00Agree with you 100%, dwb. Have you heard of the Su...Agree with you 100%, dwb. Have you heard of the Sudbury Valley School? They are able to offer completely personalized education for each student at only $8200/year for the first child (less for younger siblings). Vouchers should easily be able to cover both fixed and variable costs of private education (esp. in states with lower living costs than MA). <br /><br />I really can't understand why any talk of school vouchers is verboten on the left, save the union angle. <br /><br />http://www.sudval.org<br /><br />http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudbury_Valley_SchoolJohn Snoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-12087017439004098702014-02-06T23:19:43.144-05:002014-02-06T23:19:43.144-05:00Another myth is that there's such a thing as a...Another myth is that there's such a thing as a scientific consensus. The notion itself is unscientific. Theories, models, and breakthroughs do not result from counting noses. And who says that panels hand-picked by a U.N. body are representative of anything at all? nickhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13548029710654573488noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-66712106484365097412014-02-06T15:17:13.101-05:002014-02-06T15:17:13.101-05:00The Laffer Curve is perfectly rational and general...The Laffer Curve is perfectly rational and generally accepted idea amongst economists. The objections come as to when does the inflection point occur that is disputed and mostly informed by ideological bias.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13305124836711242805noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-53140465296808202632014-02-06T06:34:52.447-05:002014-02-06T06:34:52.447-05:00A thing that I note in this discussion is the vagu...A thing that I note in this discussion is the vague and undefinied way how "liberal" and "conservative" labels are used; "liberal" is applyed to everything from the technocratic social liberalismo to radical enviromnentalism (how can be argued that in some things - like the distrust by modern technology - have more in common to traditional conservatism that to mainstream liberalism); and "conservative" seems to be applyed more to libertarianism/classic liberalismo (see the references to methodological individualism as "conservative") than to "real" conservatism.Miguel Madeirahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07382939732567489809noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-7708059788813598602014-02-06T04:33:35.717-05:002014-02-06T04:33:35.717-05:00Limited resources, unlimited wants.
Your first le...Limited resources, unlimited wants.<br /><br />Your first lesson in economics? Ie people are greedy. <br /><br />This is not a fact. In fact the whole Enlightenment was about saying that humans and humanity are not like that.<br /><br />Not only would philosophers disagree with that. Many psychologists would too.<br /><br />Economics is a construct of the rise of the English capitalist and middle class, the British commercial and political Empire and the end of feudalism. <br /><br />Even if it (and its budget lines and indifference curves) was an artificial construct, it was an intellectual framework this rising new class could run with.<br /><br />Economics needs to go back to having different narratives to explain the truth. That, like any humanities subject does, include a proper re-reading of the classics - in this case the Wealth of Nations, The General Theory and Das Kapital.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-2278121075307635172014-02-05T21:02:56.346-05:002014-02-05T21:02:56.346-05:00"deadweight loss", "Pareto optimali..."deadweight loss", "Pareto optimality" and much else are conservative notions. As is the methodological individualism that pervades mainstream economics. The profession as a whole is conservative, not because the "facts" are, but because the arguments have been constructed from conservative premises. Which leaves liberals like Paul Krugman in a visibly uncomfortable space.Peter Thttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13289172253358199028noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-4383408830787922672014-02-05T20:50:03.648-05:002014-02-05T20:50:03.648-05:00re: "A mainstream American liberal would like...re: "A mainstream American liberal would likely claim that the small efficiency loss from taxation was an acceptable price to pay for the welfare gain of redistribution."<br /><br />A mainstream American liberal would claim that low taxation is inefficient, and that high taxes promote economic efficiency. The same goes for high minimum wages. They promote efficiency. The issue of redistribution is secondary.<br /><br />A good demonstration would be to consider red states and blue states. The latter are much more efficient in that they provide more goods and services to more people with less friction and inherent waste. There's a reason their economies are more robust, and their high real estate prices attest to their desirability.<br /><br />This is an example of a common bias in economic discourse. Economics really needs some more critical thought. There's no evidence that high tax rates are inefficient. There is evidence that markets are inefficient. Sometimes high taxes, like lubrication, can make the engine work better.Kaleberghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05283840743310507878noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-72484613529946314142014-02-05T17:12:14.861-05:002014-02-05T17:12:14.861-05:00Have you heard about the Ford foundation blocking ...Have you heard about the Ford foundation blocking green revolution techniques in Africa in the 80's? The mainstream environmentalists have blood on their hands.Krzyshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15794655390770135247noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-29224874216301624802014-02-05T15:49:58.914-05:002014-02-05T15:49:58.914-05:00Intelligent income redistribution would focus upon...Intelligent income redistribution would focus upon the group who actually gained most during the last decades and according to Piketty&Saez 2003 it is the top 1%. Now if this group had actually become more productive since the eighties a tax increase would indeed destroy incentives. But skill-biased technological change is nonsense, it is all political economy (I do not have to point out what happened in the eighties) so increasing income taxes on the top 1% will probably have no incentive effects at all. If income effects are stronger than substitution effects for the top 1%, i.e. if the labour supply curve is sloping to the left, a tax increase can even incentivize them to work harder.<br /><br />In short, when people make money via political tricks and not via doing some work which is of social value (quite some hedge funds managers out there who frankly admit that their work is socially fairly useless) taxing the shit out of them is a smart thing to do. Plenty of middle class and lower class people whom you can tax less and actually incentivize to work harder.<br /><br />So a well designed income tax pattern can actually increase income equality and raise GDP.<br />Furthermore we have all read our Stiglitz, the second welfare theorem doesn't hold when there are externalities (which includes incentive problems due to asymmetric information) so allocation and distribution cannot be neatly separated.<br />Of course there isn't in general a positive or negative effect of one upon the other, it depends on the model. The lesson is that the connection between allocation and distribution isn't as simple as in the "make the pie larger or distribute it more equally" analogy. Economics is all about incentives ... but income taxes is just one among many of incentive issues.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-36318355262772351032014-02-05T15:38:09.141-05:002014-02-05T15:38:09.141-05:00hippies =/= liberalshippies =/= liberalsAndy Harlesshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17582263872850949568noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-83526389547672390562014-02-05T13:51:43.283-05:002014-02-05T13:51:43.283-05:00It ain't so because you say so.
The performa...It ain't so because you say so. <br /><br />The performance of Swedish students had been declining before the reform. The question is, did the reform slow-down the trend? The answer is yes, but it takes a while. Here is the study by researchers in Sweden:<br />http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2100771CAnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-5607975643137132722014-02-05T13:26:38.409-05:002014-02-05T13:26:38.409-05:00"A mainstream American liberal would likely c..."A mainstream American liberal would likely claim that the small efficiency loss from taxation was an acceptable price to pay for the welfare gain of redistribution." That may have been true at one time (see Athur Okun, Equality and Efficiency: The Big Tradeoff (1977)) but it does not seem to describe the current posture of mainstream American liberals. Today, they claim (as President Obama does frequently) that reducing inequality is a necessary condition for economic growth. I have never heard President Obama say that the welfare gains from redistribution outweigh the job losses from his regulatory and tax policies - on the contrary, he (and his academic enablers) insists that such balancing is not necessary. That posture, of course, makes it impossible to have an intelligent discussion about costs and benefits. <br />Douglas B. Levenehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07916420802096618688noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-33789401073556079882014-02-05T12:03:25.780-05:002014-02-05T12:03:25.780-05:00There are only two economic facts, one with a libe...There are only two economic facts, one with a liberal bias and one with a conservative bias:<br /><br />1. Life presents plus-sum opportunities that can only be achieved by government coordination.<br /><br />2. Markets are more reliable price discovery mechanisms than bureaucracies.<br /><br />As it turns out, the prices that markets discover are inherently zero-sum results. Thus, we must use the less reliable price mechanism of bureaucratic intervention in order to achieve the plus-sum results that nature has perversely made available. <br /><br />Virtually all economic policy debate is aimed at establishing whether the plus sum gained from coordination exceeds the efficiency lost from intervention. The Right always tells us how much "smarter" the market is than any pointy-headed academic government apparatchik. And the Left tells us how much richer (not to mention "better") we would be if the people who cannot afford to buy things could afford to buy them. <br /><br />Each side is right, but each claim provides explicitly either a minor or major premise, not a whole syllogism. Unless the Right can show that "smarter" decisions produce an optimal outcome (itself an undefined but nevertheless real desideratum), who cares whether the market is smarter than the bureaucrat? And unless the Left can show that there is a way via intervention to reach a better outcome than the market provides, why does it matter that such an outcome would be preferable to a market-driven one?<br /><br />People disagree over these unstated premises. Mostly, though, they are unaware that they are just taking sides in the coordination/efficiency debate, thinking that every problem is unique (even though their positions on nearly every issue are predictable by determining which side represents coordination and which side represents market efficiency. In any given time and place, the need for more coordination may trump the need for more market efficiency, and at some other time and place, the opposite situation may pertain. One might argue that in any given time and place, then, the economic "facts" have a liberal or conservative bias. But such a bias, I submit, is historically contingent, and either side may claim that the facts favor its bias, whether or not they "actually" do, whatever that means.Lawrence J. Kramerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06765377230733211459noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-35509411484641972312014-02-05T11:07:14.975-05:002014-02-05T11:07:14.975-05:00Reason,
The performance of the us was better, eve...Reason,<br /><br />The performance of the us was better, even though one would expect a lagging growth and continued Western European catch-up, which was the case before the 70's. Krzyshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15794655390770135247noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-46267912844186925782014-02-05T11:03:05.065-05:002014-02-05T11:03:05.065-05:00Simple answers might be wrong and complex ones mig...Simple answers might be wrong and complex ones might be right, however you will never know it since the available data will never let you filter noise away. It's not the ontology but epistemology, which is the problem.Krzyshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15794655390770135247noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-54026912208662334492014-02-05T10:08:04.609-05:002014-02-05T10:08:04.609-05:00trash talking the school system? Why is that harmf...trash talking the school system? Why is that harmful? Every year my boss reviews me, is that trash talking? Does it make my performance better or worse? How about when customers post negative product reviews on Amazon?<br /><br />Of COURSE its my responsibility to make sure my child gets a good education. Fortunately, I make 6 figures and have the choice to move out of Baltimore City and put my children in a good school district. And fortunately, I have the EXTRA 20k per year if I choose to put my children into a private school, or move. And, fortunately, I also have the time (and skills) to tutor them in math, or pay a private tutor $50/hr.<br /><br />See how that works? School choice is only for the fortunate.<br /><br />So, since I want everyone to have the same fortunate choices as me with regard to school choice, and I a nutty right wing tea partier trashing the school system, or a hardened liberal because I want equality of opportunity?<br /><br />dwbhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02799793864068767226noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-27434757181169471972014-02-05T09:32:37.545-05:002014-02-05T09:32:37.545-05:00At the end of the day it is YOUR responsibility to...At the end of the day it is YOUR responsibility to make sure that your children get the most out of their schooling. Even the best teachers will fail miserably if the parents are undercutting their efforts by trash talking the school system. Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02681526348633581059noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-86371780716564284712014-02-05T09:06:40.043-05:002014-02-05T09:06:40.043-05:00Except the recent Swedish experiment with educatio...Except the recent Swedish experiment with education is collapsing in a morass of recrimination, a staggering collapse of standards when compared to other nations, the actual bankrupcy of a number of private school chains, and a wholesale reappraisal of the 'free school' experiment at the political level. And this comes just as the UK adopts it as a workable model for the future of its education system.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17232051.post-33671519351701220362014-02-05T08:16:06.123-05:002014-02-05T08:16:06.123-05:00Middle and high school math is not a "talent&...Middle and high school math is not a "talent" amenable to magnet schools. It's a fundamental skill. School board elections do not make individual teachers accountable. <br /><br />You have not given me an argument Benjamin why I care about the "public school system" Why shouldn't they compete for resources like anyone else? Give me a solid economic argument what characteristics of the education delivery market creates natural monopolies. Electricity is deregulated in MD, and they effectively split the fixed costs (infrastructure and delivery, provided by utility) from the energy costs (where I have choice). Charter schools in many districts share space, which is an analogous model - although I am not convinced the state of Maryland has particular expertise in constructing a building with a gym. <br /><br />And, don't get me started on students with disabilities like autism, I know many parents who have had large legal fights with various districts to prevent mainstreaming and to get their kids into appropriate schools. <br /><br /><br />dwbhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02799793864068767226noreply@blogger.com