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Maybe I'm just old, but my 101 econ texbooks made no mention of behavioral economics and very little of welfare economics. Those were in the wishy washy electiv

by netcan 6y ago

Maybe I'm just old, but my 101 econ texbooks made no mention of behavioral economics and very little of welfare economics. Those were in the wishy washy electives bucket. I'd actually like to try this experiment, irl. My guess is that the majority of micro teachers today would deal with "What was Keynes' mistake" in the "tweak and defend" way. At most traditional economics schools, LSE or whatnot, I'd put money on it. Look... I think what you're describing is an effect, not a cause. Social science theories, when faithfully implemented, have had some terrible results. Formal, orthodox economics still holds a lot of power in the most formal bureaucracies like the IMF, central banks, UN agencies, etc. They like legible, citable orthodoxy. They like to have a beyond reproach "scientific basis" or expert consensus for policies. There's a noteworthy principle-agent-ish aspect to this. Social science strongholds tend to exist outside of both market and electoral discipline. A municipality or HR department isn't, so social science doesn't thrive there. All this is a matter of degrees though. Social sciences still do have influence, certainly at the national-political level. Slight tangent: I'm not actually very familiar with Romer, beyond the basics. Was Endogenous Growth Theory the basis for higher education subsidies, or is that a different flavour of human capital theory?

naravara 6y ago
Behavioral Econ is where all the energy is right now. Advances in computing, data collection, and statistical methods have enabled levels of quantitative analysis around natural experiments that nobody thought possible even a few years ago. >Social science theories, when faithfully implemented, have had some terrible results. I think the challenge is that there isn't such a thing as "faithfully" implementing a social science theory. There is too much unaccounted for to just blindly apply. What you're describing sounds more like ideology, which is generally a step or two removed from the underlying theory. Social scientists are themselves aware of the limitations around generalizability of any specific truth claim. It's mostly the pop-version that get a mind of their own and start getting applied uncritically. And the shift of expert opinion in the policy world from actual, practicing social scientists to political flacks and industry types has really ramped up this tendency. Part of the challenge is that there is also lots of ideologically motivated funding in economics and social science that is attempting to put its fingers on the scales of academic inquiry. >Was Endogenous Growth Theory the basis for higher education subsidies, or is that a different flavour of human capital theory? Partly. Depends on whether you're talking about in the US context or a developing country context. In the latter, from the perspective of financial institutions like the World Bank it mostly guided where the loans were disbursed. Previously the focus was very much on infrastructure. Endogenous growth theory started encouraging them to pivot to investments in education and healthcare instead. One of the challenges is that infrastructure is fairly easy and politically popular (powerful people get to bid on the contracts and it creates a rich vein for cronyism and kickbacks). Education and healthcare take more mature organizational capacity and, once you start promising it, people start getting mad at you when you suck at it and vote you out. In developed countries education subsidies are very old. Even high education was mostly viewed as a public responsibility until fairly recently when the risk was offloaded to students instead. American Land Grant universities, particularly the University of California school system, were an early case study to prove the value of education as a growth driver.
- netcan 6y ago
  >> Advances in computing, data collection, and statistical methods have enabled levels of quantitative analysis around natural experiments that nobody thought possible even a few years ago. I have to say I'm skeptical. What's the best study to change my mind? >> What you're describing sounds more like ideology, which is generally a step or two removed from the underlying theory. The relationship between ideology and social science theory is pretty much intractable, IMO. I think you could equally argue that theory is a step or two removed from the underlying ideology. This has pretty much always been the case, certainly true of the fields' founders. Maybe Khaldun was non ideological, but that's going back a long ways. The point about social scientists being aware of the limitations around generalizability.... Again, I totally disagree. A non generalizable theory is a just so story, or punditry. Social scientists claim (or at least imply) generalizability, usually. Non generalizability is a retreat in the face of criticism. IRL, an education in social science, at graduate level, at highly regarded schools, across social science disciplines... is training on how to string together an argument/analysis which generalizes theory, typologies, and whatnot. That is what social science is, in practice. (I hope we're both taking these disagreements as academic and friendly. No mean spirit intended)
  - naravara 6y ago
    > What's the best study to change my mind? Freakonomics is a pop-Econ book that’s all about behavioral economics and really mainstreamed much of the field when it came out. There’s lots of methodological issues with individual studies but it’s a good primer on how to think like an economist. > The relationship between ideology and social science theory is pretty much intractable, IMO. It’s really not. But I’m not really sure that’s a productive avenue to go down so I’m going to leave it. > The point about social scientists being aware of the limitations around generalizability.... Again, I totally disagree. A non generalizable theory is a just so story, or punditry. Social scientists claim (or at least imply) generalizability, usually. Non generalizability is a retreat in the face of criticism. No. Caveating the limitations of any particular study or finding is simply an exercise in humility about what is known and what is uncertain. “Limits of generalizability” doesn’t mean it’s non-generalizable. It just means it’s not infinitely generalizable time all circumstances. Punditry is the opposite of that. I’m starting to have trouble following what you believe “theory” means if you’re interpreting it in these ways. > IRL, an education in social science, at graduate level, at highly regarded schools, across social science disciplines... is training on how to string together an argument/analysis which generalizes theory, typologies, and whatnot. That is what social science is, in practice. Ah, training on how make an argument and do analysis is the core of what academics is. I have no idea what “generalizes theory and whatnot” is supposed to mean. Most of the work people actually do is looking into case studies and comparing them against each other, doing metaanalysis on a variety of studies, or doing empirical research or hypothesis testing on a particular situation or an interesting data set. There are some groundbreaking works that manage to piece these together into grand theories, but that’s a small minority to what social scientists actually do. The lions share is just looking into “what happens to Y when X changes?” I’m actually going to turn this back around on you. Human beings are complex and society is even moreso. I would argue that an education in hard STEM fields leaves their practitioners incapable of coping with uncertainty, evaluating the quality of evidence, or understanding how to make reasonable inferences in the face of ambiguity. The implication that theories, to be useful, must be infinitely generalizable regardless of extenuating circumstances or that outcomes much be 100% certain to be valid shows this tendency. But these assumptions aren’t actually congruent with how the real world works. The real world is messy, and collected data in it even moreso. Being able to speak about it requires a certain level of judgement and capacity for discrimination that lets you cut through the fog of ambiguity. Rather than weaknesses, these are the skills that social science equips people with.

by netcan 6y ago

naravara 6y ago

Behavioral Econ is where all the energy is right now. Advances in computing, data collection, and statistical methods have enabled levels of quantitative analysis around natural experiments that nobody thought possible even a few years ago. >Social science theories, when faithfully implemented, have had some terrible results. I think the challenge is that there isn't such a thing as "faithfully" implementing a social science theory. There is too much unaccounted for to just blindly apply. What you're describing sounds more like ideology, which is generally a step or two removed from the underlying theory. Social scientists are themselves aware of the limitations around generalizability of any specific truth claim. It's mostly the pop-version that get a mind of their own and start getting applied uncritically. And the shift of expert opinion in the policy world from actual, practicing social scientists to political flacks and industry types has really ramped up this tendency. Part of the challenge is that there is also lots of ideologically motivated funding in economics and social science that is attempting to put its fingers on the scales of academic inquiry. >Was Endogenous Growth Theory the basis for higher education subsidies, or is that a different flavour of human capital theory? Partly. Depends on whether you're talking about in the US context or a developing country context. In the latter, from the perspective of financial institutions like the World Bank it mostly guided where the loans were disbursed. Previously the focus was very much on infrastructure. Endogenous growth theory started encouraging them to pivot to investments in education and healthcare instead. One of the challenges is that infrastructure is fairly easy and politically popular (powerful people get to bid on the contracts and it creates a rich vein for cronyism and kickbacks). Education and healthcare take more mature organizational capacity and, once you start promising it, people start getting mad at you when you suck at it and vote you out. In developed countries education subsidies are very old. Even high education was mostly viewed as a public responsibility until fairly recently when the risk was offloaded to students instead. American Land Grant universities, particularly the University of California school system, were an early case study to prove the value of education as a growth driver.

netcan 6y ago
>> Advances in computing, data collection, and statistical methods have enabled levels of quantitative analysis around natural experiments that nobody thought possible even a few years ago. I have to say I'm skeptical. What's the best study to change my mind? >> What you're describing sounds more like ideology, which is generally a step or two removed from the underlying theory. The relationship between ideology and social science theory is pretty much intractable, IMO. I think you could equally argue that theory is a step or two removed from the underlying ideology. This has pretty much always been the case, certainly true of the fields' founders. Maybe Khaldun was non ideological, but that's going back a long ways. The point about social scientists being aware of the limitations around generalizability.... Again, I totally disagree. A non generalizable theory is a just so story, or punditry. Social scientists claim (or at least imply) generalizability, usually. Non generalizability is a retreat in the face of criticism. IRL, an education in social science, at graduate level, at highly regarded schools, across social science disciplines... is training on how to string together an argument/analysis which generalizes theory, typologies, and whatnot. That is what social science is, in practice. (I hope we're both taking these disagreements as academic and friendly. No mean spirit intended)
- naravara 6y ago
  > What's the best study to change my mind? Freakonomics is a pop-Econ book that’s all about behavioral economics and really mainstreamed much of the field when it came out. There’s lots of methodological issues with individual studies but it’s a good primer on how to think like an economist. > The relationship between ideology and social science theory is pretty much intractable, IMO. It’s really not. But I’m not really sure that’s a productive avenue to go down so I’m going to leave it. > The point about social scientists being aware of the limitations around generalizability.... Again, I totally disagree. A non generalizable theory is a just so story, or punditry. Social scientists claim (or at least imply) generalizability, usually. Non generalizability is a retreat in the face of criticism. No. Caveating the limitations of any particular study or finding is simply an exercise in humility about what is known and what is uncertain. “Limits of generalizability” doesn’t mean it’s non-generalizable. It just means it’s not infinitely generalizable time all circumstances. Punditry is the opposite of that. I’m starting to have trouble following what you believe “theory” means if you’re interpreting it in these ways. > IRL, an education in social science, at graduate level, at highly regarded schools, across social science disciplines... is training on how to string together an argument/analysis which generalizes theory, typologies, and whatnot. That is what social science is, in practice. Ah, training on how make an argument and do analysis is the core of what academics is. I have no idea what “generalizes theory and whatnot” is supposed to mean. Most of the work people actually do is looking into case studies and comparing them against each other, doing metaanalysis on a variety of studies, or doing empirical research or hypothesis testing on a particular situation or an interesting data set. There are some groundbreaking works that manage to piece these together into grand theories, but that’s a small minority to what social scientists actually do. The lions share is just looking into “what happens to Y when X changes?” I’m actually going to turn this back around on you. Human beings are complex and society is even moreso. I would argue that an education in hard STEM fields leaves their practitioners incapable of coping with uncertainty, evaluating the quality of evidence, or understanding how to make reasonable inferences in the face of ambiguity. The implication that theories, to be useful, must be infinitely generalizable regardless of extenuating circumstances or that outcomes much be 100% certain to be valid shows this tendency. But these assumptions aren’t actually congruent with how the real world works. The real world is messy, and collected data in it even moreso. Being able to speak about it requires a certain level of judgement and capacity for discrimination that lets you cut through the fog of ambiguity. Rather than weaknesses, these are the skills that social science equips people with.