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The sections of this article which are descriptions of current work being done by several Clark medal winners are reasonably accurate and fair summaries. The r

The sections of this article which are descriptions of current work being done by several Clark medal winners are reasonably accurate and fair summaries. The rest is a complete mess written by someone who is uninformed at best. The discussion of tobacco taxes and the discussion of wages in the Premier League are both particularly bad. Please don't take it seriously as a description of what's going on in the field or what the current problems are. When I teach my freshman undergrads supply and demand in two weeks I will make very clear to them that we do not have that much empirical support for the claim that minimum wages increase unemployment and that it is an unsettled question. This is the first college-level economics class they will take in our department and I am going to make sure they understand that point. I would be willing to bet that nearly every one of my colleagues teaching similar classes throughout the US and abroad will do the same when they discuss minimum wage policies.

osclarto 5y ago
I graduated with an econ BSc from a Russel Group University in the UK, it was definitely not made clear where and where not there was actual empirical evidence for the conclusions of the neoclassical modelling we were taught. The state of syllabi around the world is a total embarrassment.
- osclarto 5y ago
  I'd happily go even further and say that economics as a field is a total embarrassment
  - smackeyacky 5y ago
    Its not a total embarrassment, its more akin to christian apologetics or academic study of lord of the rings. That ia, clever and learned people with a rich, well documented history, studying a fantasy.
- huitzitziltzin 5y ago
  The first question to ask is when you graduated. Syllabi continue to become more and more empirical, but that process started in the 90’s and accelerated in the 2000’s. MIT’s Micro Principles class has at this point been rewritten so that it is “the Principles of Economics and Relevant Empirical Evidence.” (That’s my gloss on it not the actual title.) My class definitely features examples from the news every week or every day. I cite the research literature when I can, but it’s not really possible to get in depth with students who are taking their first course in the subject.
bogota 5y ago
Can you explain how it’s a complete mess? I have been interested in economics for a long time and as such read many published articles but I have a hard time actually applying it to anything in the real world. Often the majority of economists are completely wrong just look at recent inflation predictions. You don’t have to look hard to find the field is consistently far off the mark.
- pakitan 5y ago
  I'm not an economist but the examples with tobacco and premier league wages struck me too as extremely bad. Supply/demand curves are an abstraction and for that abstraction to be remotely useful, you need to assume all else is being equal. You can't just take decades of data, with massive change in culture and health consciousness, and declare "Supply/demand curves are wrong because tobacco price fell, while consumption also fell! The economists lied to us when they told us price is the only thing that drives consumption!" Well, bullshit, no economist ever claimed that. And the rising salaries of the premier league plays are not a big mystery. If all clubs can fire the worst 50% of their players, their salary budget is increased. If that happens in a company like McDonalds, you can can just keep paying the rest the same or even less because everyone can flip burgers. Premier league clubs can't just pocket the "saved" money, they still need the absolute top players to win and if you don't pay your talent the most you can afford, some other club will. This has nothing to do with the failings of supply/demand curves. If anything it's a prime example of them working exactly as expected.
  - kevin_morrill 5y ago
    More over the risk of death is part of the cost calculation for tobacco. Not all prices / values are monetary. This is a crucial aspect any serious economist incorporates and this article completely misses.
wnolens 5y ago
I'm slowly feeding a budding interest in economics and started with Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell. With all the stories and references, I take the basic principles as mostly scientific. However when I told someone with more background in economics, they made me feel as if I'm reading a heretical book that only tells half the story. Do you have similar views on that book/author, or if not familiar - do you have any recommended books/courses? I can't help but feel economics learning comes married to a politics, but it's not clear when reading.
- huitzitziltzin 5y ago
  Haven’t read it so I can’t comment on it. Economists of a more conservative bent do praise the book, but that’s all I know about it. Really any intro principles book should be fine for the basics. Mankiw is a popular choice. Wolfers and Stevenson is one I use for examples and class problems. The book my department uses is set by committee and because they give the students at our university a (very good) deal relative to competitors. Economics does not need to come with any politics at the intro or any level, frankly. In my class, I do criticize a lot of very stupid things DJT did as president when they intersect the material I am teaching, but I’m happy to note when Biden (who I happily voted for) does something I disagreed with.
donkey-hotei 5y ago
Wouldn't you want to bring up the work of David Card, who won a Nobel prize by analyzing "natural experiments" on the effects of minimum wage and unemployment?[0] [0] https://davidcard.berkeley.edu/papers/njmin-aer.pdf https://davidcard.berkeley.edu/papers/njmin-aer.pdf

osclarto 5y ago

I graduated with an econ BSc from a Russel Group University in the UK, it was definitely not made clear where and where not there was actual empirical evidence for the conclusions of the neoclassical modelling we were taught. The state of syllabi around the world is a total embarrassment.

osclarto 5y ago
I'd happily go even further and say that economics as a field is a total embarrassment
- smackeyacky 5y ago
  Its not a total embarrassment, its more akin to christian apologetics or academic study of lord of the rings. That ia, clever and learned people with a rich, well documented history, studying a fantasy.
huitzitziltzin 5y ago
The first question to ask is when you graduated. Syllabi continue to become more and more empirical, but that process started in the 90’s and accelerated in the 2000’s. MIT’s Micro Principles class has at this point been rewritten so that it is “the Principles of Economics and Relevant Empirical Evidence.” (That’s my gloss on it not the actual title.) My class definitely features examples from the news every week or every day. I cite the research literature when I can, but it’s not really possible to get in depth with students who are taking their first course in the subject.

bogota 5y ago

Can you explain how it’s a complete mess? I have been interested in economics for a long time and as such read many published articles but I have a hard time actually applying it to anything in the real world. Often the majority of economists are completely wrong just look at recent inflation predictions. You don’t have to look hard to find the field is consistently far off the mark.

pakitan 5y ago
I'm not an economist but the examples with tobacco and premier league wages struck me too as extremely bad. Supply/demand curves are an abstraction and for that abstraction to be remotely useful, you need to assume all else is being equal. You can't just take decades of data, with massive change in culture and health consciousness, and declare "Supply/demand curves are wrong because tobacco price fell, while consumption also fell! The economists lied to us when they told us price is the only thing that drives consumption!" Well, bullshit, no economist ever claimed that. And the rising salaries of the premier league plays are not a big mystery. If all clubs can fire the worst 50% of their players, their salary budget is increased. If that happens in a company like McDonalds, you can can just keep paying the rest the same or even less because everyone can flip burgers. Premier league clubs can't just pocket the "saved" money, they still need the absolute top players to win and if you don't pay your talent the most you can afford, some other club will. This has nothing to do with the failings of supply/demand curves. If anything it's a prime example of them working exactly as expected.
- kevin_morrill 5y ago
  More over the risk of death is part of the cost calculation for tobacco. Not all prices / values are monetary. This is a crucial aspect any serious economist incorporates and this article completely misses.

wnolens 5y ago

I'm slowly feeding a budding interest in economics and started with Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell. With all the stories and references, I take the basic principles as mostly scientific. However when I told someone with more background in economics, they made me feel as if I'm reading a heretical book that only tells half the story. Do you have similar views on that book/author, or if not familiar - do you have any recommended books/courses? I can't help but feel economics learning comes married to a politics, but it's not clear when reading.

huitzitziltzin 5y ago
Haven’t read it so I can’t comment on it. Economists of a more conservative bent do praise the book, but that’s all I know about it. Really any intro principles book should be fine for the basics. Mankiw is a popular choice. Wolfers and Stevenson is one I use for examples and class problems. The book my department uses is set by committee and because they give the students at our university a (very good) deal relative to competitors. Economics does not need to come with any politics at the intro or any level, frankly. In my class, I do criticize a lot of very stupid things DJT did as president when they intersect the material I am teaching, but I’m happy to note when Biden (who I happily voted for) does something I disagreed with.

donkey-hotei 5y ago

Wouldn't you want to bring up the work of David Card, who won a Nobel prize by analyzing "natural experiments" on the effects of minimum wage and unemployment?[0] [0] https://davidcard.berkeley.edu/papers/njmin-aer.pdf https://davidcard.berkeley.edu/papers/njmin-aer.pdf