3 ms·
> An “economic problem” is one which requires the allocation of limited resources in order to solve a problem. That’s not an “economic problem”, that’s a resou
by dqpb 5y ago
> An “economic problem” is one which requires the allocation of limited resources in order to solve a problem.
That’s not an “economic problem”, that’s a resource allocation problem.
Economics is the study of the statistical, game theoretic, and computational properties of a market.
A market is a protocol for decentralized decision making.
Not all markets solve the resource allocation problem. For example, prediction markets.
- nkmnz 5y agoThe economic problem is often phrased as „how to get more output with the same input, or how to get the same output with less input“. Prediction markets do only exist because they help with the problem - betting on the wrong horse is a waste of scarce resources. In the same way, matching markets have centralized decision makers that can be more efficient than decentralized approaches.
- YokoZar 5y ago> Economics is the study of the statistical, game theoretic, and computational properties of a market. I was taught in my Econ 1 textbooks that Economics is the study of scarcity. Game theory and stats didn't enter into it until much later. Either way, it's just a semantics question about what "economics" means. The author has a real point about what's actually scarce here, and the contrast with people's expectations is a good one.