Anyone else surprised to hear Cecil’s dim view of the entire field of economics in the latest column? Kind of a broad indictment to doubt that economics, “contributes in any way to the betterment of humanity.” Sure, some bad economic thinking has caused a lot of pain throughout history. But could we enjoy our current quality of life without economics?
Discuss.
Yes. Given that economics is simply the study of how to allocate scarce resources, and that the actual allocation occurs without the study of it, I’d say it isn’t necessary at all to our standard of living, which seems to hum along just fine in spite of the economists. 
Seriously, Unca Cece is simply utilizing one of his favorite literary tools, hyperbole. I think. 
Of course economics benefits humanity. It keeps otherwise unemployable people (economists) off of the streets.
Seriously: to the extent that it is merely descriptive, economics is a tolerable endeavor. It’s the politically-motivated “theories” that give the Dismal Science a bad name.
Definetly worthwhile. Wild gangs of economists stalking the streets, inflicting brutal acts of statistical conversion. Who needs the Bloods and Crips when you have the Keynes and Frieds?
Imagine the graffiti. :eek:
I don’t remember the duos’ names, but two economists supposedly fairly well proved that the Great Depression was caused by the Federal Bank. Showing how it happened should theoretically enable us to not have it happen again (through the same operatus.)
Or had Rennaisance Spain understood economics, the country wouldn’t have crashed and burned from having imported so much gold into the economy.
And of course the idea of trade causing a greater amount of money for both sides of the equation, rather than one side always losing out, is possibly one of the greatest factors in reducing war in the modern age.
Economics may still be a relatively young study, but it is far from useless.
Like accountants they are a necessary evil for our modern economy, but as Adam Smith would say they “Produce no new wealth”. They literally & figuratively just move wealth around.
Oh, and I wouldn’t say that “Cecil to Economists: Drop Dead” was accurate, maybe “Cecil to Economists: Get a Job!”
Not even that, really. Let’s look at what Cecil, in his infinite wisdom and unerring ways, actually said:
The second line doesn’t express anything of Cecil’s own opinion, but just notes the plain fact that people do have doubts about economics and do complain that the prize exists at all. Which, in my experience, is true. Both economics and the economics prize get a lot of flak.
The first line could maybe be interpreted to be expressing Cecil’s own opinion by calling that prize “suspect”, but he could just be meaning by that that others are suspicious of the prize, and thus it is suspect. Or, he could just be getting at the fact that it’s suspect as a Nobel insofar as it wasn’t actually created by Alfred Nobel’s will and didn’t pop up till much later than the other prizes.
So, all told, it’s not clear that Cecil dissed economics at all; the worst he did was note the (true) fact that others hold dim views of it.
Studying a little Economics is a dangerous thing
Yo ladies, cap n’collar your mortgages
I don’t know Indistinguishable the bolded part of the quote is in my opinion a pretty harsh thing to say.
This is my absolute first, genuine, sole, and obviously heartfelt post to the Dope, so bear with me.
I see so much negativity here about the discipline of Economics that I feel compelled to advocate for the devil. The first thing I note is a fallacy of generality. I think it’s a mis-understanding that economists are like one another, and the old joke is that few think the same way. I’ve been one for 15 years with the federal government. I’m an applied one, so I try to take data, and make a case for reform. Most of my stuff has been in the area of household consumption decisions, and how governments should intervene in different contexts, exactly how, to target various groups, assuming that state has the will to satisy that group, willingly or fiscally: females, low education, unemployed, job-types, stuff like that. So basically, I’m descriptive/ normative.
Yeah, I think macro has given Economics a bad name, mainly because of aggregation bias (which is like seeing a Hispanic man litter and assuming that all Hispanics litter in all places). They just refuse to show us the data and the equations, so we can at least see if these things are testable. Otherwise they just assume that they’re smart enough, or know enough people, to implement theory. They’ve been spectacularly wrong, too, which helps explain why people like us completely distrust these “brilliant minds.” This is not sour grapes. Rather it’s the hubris of someone to think that he’s got a handle on huge phenomena that change act like a moving target. Madness.
So I’ve been totally into data quality and errors in variables, and bias and variance and debunking notions about what macro-types do to make their case (which is usually power-politics-related, and that gets me into a lot of trouble). I’ve tried to remain apolitical throughout my career, but eventually realized that even the study of poverty is way political. Anyway, there you go. Just so I can be objective, and after you get to know what I’m doing, I would say I feel proud to be an economist, to say I’m not hurting people (or not hurting as many people as the Pentagon types).
Please throw me your dirty laundry and I’ll do my best to disabuse you of your stereotypes, if in fact you feel you might have them. Especially I’d be interested in throwing in some statistical, empirical, and data junk into this debate.
I greet everyone with a big Hey! in frendship, and time-wasting relaxation.
Welcome to the Dope, Uncle Reemus! It’s nice to see a coherent post.
Not that I agree with you, necessarily. 
I think that economics suffers considerably compared to other sciences in that it (generally speaking, of course) is much less exact than, say, physics. You have curves, trends, and data in both, but economic projections are much less sure and exact than, say, the computation of a planet’s trajectory.
Why not start a thread like “Ask the federal government economist” and invite us to ask questions?
Two bon mots from my college econ professor:
Harry Truman said, “Get me a one-armed economist! All of mine say, ‘Well, on the one hand… and then again, on the other…’”
Don’t give them hell… sell it to them!
Musicat says that the discipline of economics is not as exact as, say, physics. He cites prediction, which is an excellent characteristic to expect for data validity. I can only wholeheartedly agree with these words, of course. I do have a couple of things to add to this, just to try to approach some of the comparisons.
Say I wanted to predict what the income of a household of four was going to be next year. I have my data for 29 years previous (!, bear with me, I’ll get to the point eventually) made up of the household’s income for those 29 previous years, the sexes, the cumulated years of eduction, the cumulated years of experience at work, and let’s stop there. So, I’m making the point, right? Prediction is data dependent, and NO equation will ever exactly predict what the income will be exactly except for an extremely small chance (less than 1 in 100). That’s why good economists talk about the errors of the equation, limits in the data, degrees of freedom, bounds of significance, and caution readers not to interpret the results as TRUTH. Economics is not a deterministic science. It’s just a tool for getting closer to probabilities so that we can say, “well, if you choose this course, the likelihood is so-and-so that you’ll end up in the place you expected.”
I love anything and everything that is associated with the precision of numbers and I have been drawn to physics because the comparison of objective phenomena (say, a meteor’s trajectory, the the equation that expresses that) and pseudo-objective data (like incomes, preference rankings, unemployment rates, AIDS cases) are related. Because data are flawed, we need the first-best ways to measure, and we choose estimators that LOOK LIKE they describe real world phenomena. This turns out to be the only way to do it - to compare the equation with another, flawed equation (distribution.)
Sorry I’m such a run-on. Have fun!
[QUOTE=Indistinguishable]
So, all told, it’s not clear that Cecil dissed economics at all; the worst he did was note the (true) fact that others hold dim views of it.
[/QUOTE]
Precisely. My own views on the subject, presented more or less at random: (1) Notwithstanding the difficulty of the task, injecting a little science into the study of human behavior is a worthwhile goal, and it’s not inherently foolish to give prizes for such work, whether it be in economics or the social sciences generally. (2) I accept the premise (which some critics don’t) that it’s legitimate to treat people as rational actors who respond to incentives and so on. (3) I can’t say I’ve found macroeconomic analysis especially compelling. (4) I enjoy the work of people like Steven Levitt, a guy after my own heart. I’d be reluctant to base public policy decisions solely on his conclusions, but they’re certainly thought-provoking and worthy of recognition. (5) Using scientific methods in economics hardly makes it a science.
[jaw drops]
I can’t believe a thread of mine elicited a response from the great one!
And to clarify, the thread title was (I thought) obviously hyperbole and an homage to the famous New York Daily News headline “Ford to City: Drop Dead”.
[QUOTE=flurb]
[jaw drops]
I can’t believe a thread of mine elicited a response from the great one!
[/QUOTE]
Are you claiming that Cecil Adams is actually Wayne Gretzky? That’s a new one. 
[QUOTE=Cecil Adams]
Precisely. My own views on the subject, presented more or less at random: (1) Notwithstanding the difficulty of the task, injecting a little science into the study of human behavior is a worthwhile goal, and it’s not inherently foolish to give prizes for such work, whether it be in economics or the social sciences generally. (2) I accept the premise (which some critics don’t) that it’s legitimate to treat people as rational actors who respond to incentives and so on. (3) I can’t say I’ve found macroeconomic analysis especially compelling. (4) I enjoy the work of people like Steven Levitt, a guy after my own heart. I’d be reluctant to base public policy decisions solely on his conclusions, but they’re certainly thought-provoking and worthy of recognition. (5) Using scientific methods in economics hardly makes it a science.
[/QUOTE]
I must have read the previous replies with all the cynicism I’ve gleaned from the pat-on “scientistists” who have responded to macro predictions AS IF they came from empirical models, whether using pseudo data or not.
It’s like this (I think). Ask someone from the World Bank if a state should invest more in education. If we cannot tell people the truth, in this day and age, about what to expect, the models are useless. How will investment in education change per capita incomes? We don’t know! Cross-country comparison doesn’t help answer the question. So I’m suggesting that the smaller the area of prediction, necessarily the narrower the data, the more valid is Economics as a discipline.
It may be stated that prizes are OK, but it better be something way different, something we know will change our lives. The big problems nowadays have to remain: growth, inequality, technology. While Richard Lucas’ Nobel for private incentives was deserved, for example, the idea of accounting completely for the benefits of certain public goods (education, say) by adding externalities has not yet been empirically proven. In other words, do I have to pay as much for my formal education in the classroom? I have such smart friends and I learn from them.
I’m not entirely sure about the word “incentives” because it’s been bandied too much, but I’ll have a go at it. I’d like to take a system, and in tweaking its parts, make it run more efficiently. To do that say you can come up with ways that exploit peoples’ frustrations, stress, problems with personal property, eg., and just suggest they try something a different way. Because sometimes we don’t even know if the incentives are driving us the right way. I mean, sometimes.
Yes, wholeheartedly I want to agree (and excuse me when I find it frustrating) just because you do an experiment doesn’t make you an experimenter. Imagine I say something like “The empirical evidence does not support …” or “my data does not show that …” What am I doing? The first assumption is that it is appropriate for me to put the question to a laboratory setting, and presumably that every phonomenon can be measured. This is just silly. There are situations that just are not made for empirical measurement; I don’t mean there isn’t data for them, there’s data. It’s just not logical to place them in the analytical context that way. People don’t seem to get that sometimes.
Thanks for your reply, Cecil, and others.
Stephen Colbert interviews Nobel Laureate Peter Agre (Chemistry 2003):
Colbert: You said “anyone who grew up on a farm knows that evolution exists”. Okay, are you saying a monkey can milk a cow?
Agre: Well, if I can milk a cow I suspect a monkey as smart as I am can milk a cow.
Colbert: Are there monkeys as smart as you?
Agre: I’m sure there are quite a few, quite a few.
Colbert: Oh really? Mm-hm. Do they give a Nobel prize for throwing your own feces?
Agre: …That’s the Economics prize, I think.
-October 19, 2006.
[QUOTE=Uncle Reemus]
…the likelihood is so-and-so that you’ll end up in the place you expected.
[/QUOTE]
Shucks–sounds kinda like Heisenberg describing quantum mechanics ta me…
[QUOTE=essell]
Like accountants they are a necessary evil for our modern economy, but as Adam Smith would say they “Produce no new wealth”. They literally & figuratively just move wealth around.
[/QUOTE]
I know this isn’t a debate forum, but it’s been well known for quite some time that wealth isn’t zero-sum. You are correct, however, that Adam Smith did not know this.