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If you answer the second kind of question over the first, you're not an economist, you're a pundit. In all of my economics training they have repeatedly focused
by drabiega 13y ago
If you answer the second kind of question over the first, you're not an economist, you're a pundit. In all of my economics training they have repeatedly focused on asking positive questions (the first kind) over normative, the second.
- yetanotherphd 13y agoI disagree, economics is well suited to addressing normative questions. For example, what positive questions do the the first and second welfare theorems address? The most fundamental values (how much do we value individual liberty? total wellbeing? the wellbeing of the least-well off?) are not necessarily for economists to define. But by describing the tradeoff between, for example, equality and efficiency, economists are able to practically answer normative questions, because almost everyone values equality and efficiency.