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What, currently, is the most popular and/or authoritative textbook in economics, or microeconomics? Slrubenstein | Talk 16:16, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
Depends on the books selection by University staff, and/or practising economists who want to keep a 'manual' for the basics.
All the text books borrow from a diverse range of authors, aggregating theory that has been accumulated over a number of decades. Try Simon Begg if you want to. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.254.147.100 ( talk) 11:50, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
What about Das's Traders, Guns and Money? Slrubenstein | Talk 21:48, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
If gas was 5.09 a gallon and it jumped 6 cant on saturday and another 6 cent on sunday and another 5 cent on monday. how would it look in graph form? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.84.168.194 ( talk) 22:48, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
I came to Wikipedia looking for information on what the "real economy" is, since I've heard that phrase used lately, and it seems very strange to me. The phrase "real economy" link to this page, but the article does not mention it at all. My questions are (1) should there be an article about the "real economy" and (2) if not, should there be a section in this article explaining it? Squandermania ( talk) 23:41, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
I have just started a page on applied economics that used to simply redirect to economics. I was looking on wikipedia for some discussion of applied economics but found none. So I have produced this. I realise its content and style might be a bit problematic and it is over-reliant on Backhouse and Biddle but I think we needed a page on applied economics. More on econometrics might be desirable. Just thought we could try this for starters and see how it goes. ( Msrasnw ( talk) 00:18, 28 December 2008 (UTC))
Under the microeconomics section the first line is:
I think this would be better in the introduction. I would also like to change it/add another "distinction".
It might then read
Does anyone mind? ( Msrasnw ( talk) 17:15, 31 December 2008 (UTC))
There is an interesting article in the new Journal of Economic Perspectives on the definition of economics. This article could be useful for the introduction, which seems to have been discussed again and again on this page, without a clear conclusion. Well, the article will not really help in establishing consensus, as the conclusion of the authors is that even in the profession there is no consensus definition (not even among mainstream economists). It would also be good material for a longer discussion in the main text, as first paragraph before discussing subfields of economics. Afroghost ( talk) 19:03, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
The intro here definitely sucks. How about in a nutshell "study of supply and demand as functions of price and quantity".
121.209.235.20 (
talk)
10:08, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
Descriptive material in the Economics#External links "General information" section for "Resources for Economists" (RFE) was recently removed here with comment "fmt links." On this see the wp guideline Wikipedia:External links#External links section, which suggests including such material, in particular:
Many potential readers of RFE might be interested in it with the following addition:
It serves a function similar to a wp:lead, which has language similar to the first indented quote above. Would it not be reasonable to consider the interests of such readers? P.S. I did appreciate the earlier point of not including unnecessary links. In fact, that is how I came to the above Edit. -- Thomasmeeks ( talk) 19:08, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
I appreciate the comments above. I'll use the grammatical third person below and add background to facilitate others following the discussion. I do agree with Mr. Bos's point that added descriptive comments for other sites besides RFE could help (e.g., the U.K. university-based Intute: Economics).I'll concentrate on RFE below. The article Edit here accompanying Mr. King's comment above restored only " American Economic Association" from my indented Edit above and in the process obscured what was a clear RFE-AEA connection (as "sponsored" & "sponsor").
Besides the above, there is this article-Edit summary by Mr. King:
I believe that restoring (for a 2nd time) the rest of my Edit above:
is also warranted, on the following more-specific informational grounds:
I think the detail given in the section named Classcial Political Economy is rather extra extensive. It contains some useful information about classcial economics, but I think, that it would be better to put this detail about the various proponents and econmists of the classical school under the article dedicated to that school.
The article Classical Economics [1] does not have much detail about Ricardo, Malthus or Mill. But this article explains them in quite detail.
I think that the information in this section should be summerized and the detail should be placed in the relevent page on Classical Economics.-- Sajjad Arif ( talk) 11:49, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
I removed the Feynman quote because its use appeared to be over reaching. Feynman was speaking about social sciences in general, not economics specifically. The example he uses in the subsequent (unquoted) sentences doesn't deal with economics. He does mention economics specifically earlier in the book (p. 105). There, he says that economics achieves "somewhat similar success (to the physical and life sciences)..." Wikiant ( talk) 17:24, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
http://books.google.ca/books?id=Md0IirlFUfEC&dq=richard+feynman+pleasure+finding+things+out&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=en&ei=rq4qSs69D5jqtgOC6dHfCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4 -- DTMGO ( talk) 18:14, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
There has been a recent flurry of POV edits. The latest (in part):
"But even with these advances (some of which can be also used by astrology) economics is limited as a science because it cannot perform controlled scientific experiments. Another example of it shortcomings as a scientific discipline is its lack of reproducibility, one of the main principles of the scientific method."
1. The parenthetical phrase in the first sentence, whether true or not, is POV by virtue of the sense it lends to the sentence. 2. The first sentence is false. Experimental Economics is an entire branch of the discipline devoted to controlled experimentation. Vernon Smith (a recent Nobel Laureate) receievd his prize for his work in this area. 3. The second sentence is similarly false. For example, look at the voluminous literature on minimum wage for an example of (literally hundreds) of studies that conform to reproducibility.
Wikiant ( talk) 18:19, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
This bit in response to the Galbraith quote might be WP:OR: Noteworthy, however, is that Galbraith's comments were made in 1975 -- well before the ubiquity of computers for data analysis, the availability of large data sets, and the advent of modern econometric techniques for forecasting.. Does the article specifically respond to Galbraith on that? If not, I don't think it's appropriate there. (I'm not sure if the Galbraith quote is appropriate itself or not, but that's a different question.) CRETOG8( t/ c) 18:41, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
These responses were edited in (deleted by you) subsequent revisions. -- DTMGO ( talk) 23:32, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
It would help the discussion if you discussed, otherwise do not delete stuff with the excuse of discussing.-- DTMGO ( talk) 23:32, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
I propose the following addition to 'Criticisms of economics'.
(addition starts)
The theory of Money-Bargaining offers a more realistic representation of economic transactions than neoclassical economic theory. The differences between money-bargaining theory and neoclassical theory may be summarised as follows:
(addition ends)
If an established user approves of this addition, perhaps he or she would edit the article. Please include a link to the Wikipedia article on 'Money-Bargaining'.
Response:
Thanks for all the comments.
It appears I am now permitted to edit the page directly, but the comments indicate that it would not be appropriate to make the proposed insertion. There is, in any case, a proposal to delete the main entries on 'Money-Bargaining' and 'Support-Bargaining', to which I have responded on the Money-Bargaining deletion page. I am copying this also to the Money-Bargaining deletion page, since it is relevant to the proposal for deletion.
We have to separate the questions of what is right and what is respectable. If Wikipedia is only concerned with material that is derived from respectable sources, then the queries about the sources (meaning the publisher, Book Guild), may be relevant. The question of what is right would be of no significance.
While the Book Guild is not a conventional publisher, it is not of the undiscriminating kind. It has some distinguished authors. It has published Lord (Denis) Healey, the former British Chancellor of the Exchequer. It also publishes Peter Evans, who was Home Affairs correspondent on the Times for seventeen years. [All the references have ISBN Numbers: Spread (1984) 0-333-36569-0; Spread (2004) 1-85776-860-4; Spread (2008) 978-1-84624-251-9.]
As regards what is right, the 'open edit' approach of Wikipedia suggests a commitment to a wider range of opinion than can be accommodated in formal 'establishment' encyclopaedias. This seems to suggest also acceptance of a broader range of sources. There is an implication that the establishment and its 'respectable' sources could be wrong, or at least incomplete.
In this case, there is a real probability that respectable sources are wrong. If needs and wants are situation-related (see 1 in the proposed insertion above, and 'Money-Bargaining/Situation related selection' in the Wikipedia article proposed for deletion), then economics has been wrong for over a hundred years. Money-bargaining gives a much more realistic account of monetary exchange. Democratic theory is more principles and aspirations than a theory of how government works. The people cannot possibly govern in any direct sense. Support-bargaining gives a realistic account of political, social and intellectual processes.
My entries and proposed insertions are designated 'fringe theory', which is fair enough from the viewpoint of orthodox economic and political theory. The designation makes it easy to delete them. But bear in mind that the fringe may become the mainstream when the paradigm changes. If my entries are designated 'alternative paradigm' it may not be so easy to delete them.
Furthermore, alternative paradigms will probably not be promulgated through orthodox institutions and publishers. Orthodox, or respectable, theory uses orthodox and respectable publishers. Because of the viability condition (see 2 above, and 'Money-Bargaining/Companies as money-bargaining agencies' in the article), orthodox publishers find it hard to publish unorthodox theory. Academics generally approve, buy, read and teach orthodox theory. So unorthodox theory has to use unorthodox publishers. If Wikipedia rules out the use of unorthodox sources, it may also be excluding right theory.
Papersign ( talk) 09:42, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
Spread, Patrick (1984). A Theory of Support and Money Bargaining, London. Macmillan
Spread, Patrick (2004). Getting It Right: Economics and the Security of Support, Sussex, Book Guild
Spread, Patrick (2008). Support-Bargaining: The Mechanics of Democracy Revealed, Sussex, Book Guild
Papersign ( talk) 13:44, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
I'm afraid this image is completely wrong :
Total utility can only fall when marginal utility is negative. -- Hooiwind ( talk) 15:03, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
Didn't want to break the flow from the above if there is more to say there.
Well, given the the discussion 3 (corrected) paragraphs up from the MU figure diagram in Economics#Supply and demand, one can make a case that that any MU figure is unnecessary in this survey article, which is on Econ., not Microeconomic theory. The latter, note, does not include the MU-TU fig.§ Demand-curve paragraph measures MU in, well, the local currency, not "utils". It identifies MU as what people would be willing to pay for an extra unit sliding down the demand curve, which should not raise insurmountable questions. The MU rising at first on the face of it suggests a positively-sloped demand curve. Sure, there's an answer to that (eventually declining MU). But why raise the question unnecessarily unless the question is answered there? Methodological individualism in the economic sense of botom-up model-building is fine, but typical uses are for explaining patterns of aggregate behavior, whether of a group of students in a laboratory or buyers in a market per deamnd and price. Sure, falsifying a widely-used simplifying assumption about individual behavior can win you a Nobel prize, but that's for a different section of this article. In short, I believe that in the present section, the figure unnecessarily raises more questions than it answers, and so has a net negative value added because of the nice explanation of MU 2 para. above without resort to it.
§ Maybe because it's about a century out of date (superceded by ordinal utility), and many principles students (distinct fron intermediate-micro students), are the last to hear of it, giving their instructors something to unteach them about later. -- Thomasmeeks ( talk) 01:59, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
Besides being a linguist, Noam Chomsky is a prominent all-around social critic. I'm not all that impressed with the quality of his criticism, but he qualifies in general to include in a "criticism" section.
Start Noam Chomsky, a social/economic critic since the 1960s is also known widely as a political dissident, and anarchist, [1] and a libertarian socialist., and has stated that his "personal visions are fairly traditional anarchist ones, with origins in The Enlightenment and classical liberalism". Chomsky has praised libertarian socialism. [2] He is a sympathizer of anarcho-syndicalism. [3] End
Skip--your version is just an introduction to Chomsky with no substance relevant to this article. I'm going to pull it out. As for everything else, this is threatening to become personal, so I'm going to withhold comment for a bit and hope someone else chimes in. CRETOG8( t/ c) 22:25, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
So in the end the result so far is total deletion of the Chomsky criticism...smells like censorship again. I think we should include but reduce Chomsky's criticism on the assumptions of economics, after all he is one of the most important living public intellectuals, an outstanding researcher, the most quoted person in the social sciences. The proposal to limit the article content to the view of economists is preposterous, economics affects everybody's lives as economists are usual advisors to government, and to limit criticism of economics to economics is again, preposterous. Furthermore, it doesn't matter who Chomsky is, because what he says about this is what matters, and I think he found economists with their pants down on this one.
--
DTMGO (
talk)
23:37, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
You misunderstand, Chomsky himself is not censored. What is censored here is criticism on economics. Chomsky not connected to economic thought? says who? There is one thing that some specialists here need to understand. Economics is very related to politics. YOu cannot separate them. So far here all the PHDs or whatever titles people carry as banner here have avoided the issues he is raising, why don't we talk about those, like labor and capital mobility, and the role of MNC in the economy, the nanny state, and how economic assumptions have not or do not take those into consideration. This has nothing to do with Chomsky's regard for anarchosyndicalism. Stick to the topic. Stick to the issues.
Anyway that economists do not coer the role of nanny government in economic issues is a pretty extended view, just look around. Or that economists like Friedman or the Economist magazine preach "free trade", but only in the manner that is advantageous for some, e.g. England in India, or more recent to the dislike of some, NAFTA. I am very surprised that this is news to many here. -- DTMGO ( talk) 00:47, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
-- DTMGO ( talk) 02:00, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
-- DTMGO ( talk) 00:19, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
DTMGO why are you so adamant at pushing your agenda here. If we start putting Chomsky in its a slippery slope. There are plenty of valid criticisms of economics, but this isn't one of them. No offence, but from reading your comments, I am coming to the conclusion that you have little to no understanding of economics, and what knowledge you do have has been from amateurish 'web research' or 'listening to pundits on the news'. Indeed this problem of 'armchair critics' hijacking serious articles is endemic at Wikipedia, and unfortunately cannot really be eliminated due to the inherent nature of the project. Suicup ( talk) 03:49, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
-- DTMGO ( talk) 00:09, 26 June 2009 (UTC)"Ricardo's "science" was founded on the principle that capital is more or less immobile and labor highly mobile. We are enjoined today to worship the consequences of Ricardo's science, despite the fact that the assumptions on which they are based have been reversed: capital is highly mobile, and labor virtually immobile -- libertarian conservatives lead the way in rejecting Adam Smith's principle that "free circulation of labor" is a cornerstone of free trade, in keeping with their contempt for markets (except for the weak). Other assumptions of the "science" are so radically false that the whole topic is hard to take seriously: among them, the abstraction from severe market distortions resulting from the centrally-managed transactions of the huge corporate structures that dominate the international economy, and the reliance on the "nanny state" that has been such a decisive factor in economic growth and the specific forms it has taken throughout history, and remains so." [5]
DTMGO, to give you an example of what I was referring to, I will respond to a point you made above:
International trade is a highly active area of economic research. Much work has been done to address some of the failures of the traditional Ricadian 'comparative advantage' analysis to explain real trade flows, for example New Trade Theory. Indeed, the most recent Nobel Prize in economics was awarded to one of the founders of this field in international economics. To be honest, I don't really know what you are trying to argue here. Simplifying assumptions are deliberately put into economic models, because despite the simplification, the key economic insight can still be gained. Deconstructing these assumptions is what you spend most of your time doing in higher level economic study. And if some piece of economic theory turns out to be wrong or flawed, that doesn't mean that Economics as a field is completely discredited as you seem to be asserting, but rather it is a sign of healthy academic progress. In fact, this is the same for any field of knowledge. For a layman like yourself, I highly recommend books like Freakanomics, and blogs including Krugman's NY Times one, as they are quite accessible IMO. If this piques your interest, then consider buying an introductory/intermediate textbook, which will then enable you to understand the higher level blogs, academic literature, and media. If you are hooked, then consider enrolling in a Bachelor of Economics... :) I don't mean to be patronizing or to attack you personally DTMGO, however it is hard to take your points seriously, in a serious article like this, if you are unable to demonstrate a proper understanding of issues. Regards Suicup ( talk) 08:44, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
-- DTMGO ( talk) 01:33, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
There is no point in our continuing to discuss this as we appear not to share a common intellectual starting point. I suggest we simply put it to a vote to see whether or not there is a compelling consensus. The question is: Do we include Chomsky's criticism and corresponding counter-criticisms. My vote is "no." Wikiant ( talk) 01:56, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
Comment If that is the case then a more generalized Chomsky comment is more appropriate in the Criticisms of economics section and not the Criticisms of assumptions section, because Chomksy is a generalist in this regard if he is notable at all, and is not known as an economist except maybe as a general flinger of ideas against some concepts connected. I also do not think it is possible to shorten or paraphrase this quote by Chomsky... because as it stands it is just not interesting or would it be an improvement to the article. skip sievert ( talk) 03:01, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
Fair enough, I will look for something more specific from Chomsky on economics (and economists) otherwise I think its a 3-2 in favor of not including the Chomsky view. -- DTMGO ( talk) 04:23, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
I rewrote this section as I think it is far more useful to classify 'business cycle' as a major topic in macro, rather than 'depressions'. Also it fits better with macroeconomics. That said, I still have some more work to do. Suicup ( talk) 08:32, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
I'm willing to discuss how to include the criticisms that DTMGO seems to want to include in this article, but to do so, I need to understand those criticisms. Right now, it reads as if the point is "Economics sucks!" and then choosing bits here and there which kinda support this view. That's not good enough.
So, what's the point? Is it specifically about the success or failure at predicting the recent financial crisis? Is it about prediction/forecasting in general? Is it that economics isn't a real science? There are already criticisms in the article. New criticisms might fall in with those. In any case, whether one agrees with the criticisms or not isn't the point, it's whether they are notable criticisms by others. CRETOG8( t/ c) 21:27, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
-- DTMGO ( talk) 23:32, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
-- DTMGO ( talk) 00:37, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
Wait a minute, there is been several comments in discussion (in which you participated) on Economist to move this criticism to Economics. Now you are taking it to somewhere totally different. So I have heard a bunch of things, first that it was biased POV not verified out of place and so on, your latest take is let's move it to the so and so minisection? The fact that economists missed the second greatest financial crisis in history? Talk about neutral point of view. -- DTMGO ( talk) 15:12, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
OK I found the evidence that Wikiant was looking for, from another reputable source, the New York Times [6]: "Recessions are signal events in any modern economy. And yet remarkably, the profession of economics is quite bad at predicting them. A recent study looked at “consensus forecasts” (the predictions of large groups of economists) that were made in advance of 60 different national recessions that hit around the world in the ’90s: in 97 percent of the cases, the study found, the economists failed to predict the coming contraction a year in advance. On those rare occasions when economists did successfully predict recessions, they significantly underestimated the severity of the downturns. Worse, many of the economists failed to anticipate recessions that occurred as soon as two months later." So we have Businessweek, Wharton and NYT saying the same thing, a couple in article titles. Does this qualify now? -- DTMGO ( talk) 15:28, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
And no, its not just about the current crisis, its about profession of economics is quite bad at predicting them. Let us keep at least the references to Businessweek, Wharton and NYT saying the same thing. I will proceed. -- DTMGO ( talk) 16:31, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
-- DTMGO ( talk) 04:59, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
Its well established your only contribution here was to delete then.
"Popular sentiment" is not just sentiment this time, unless you believe that criticising economics in the area of predicting recessions and forecasting is a "sentiment".
BTW can you provide a list of academic institutions that are reliable in your view, and your criteria.
You don't seem to go around other articles and delete all those parts that reference newspapers. Why aren't you consistent? This is not the first time. -- DTMGO ( talk) 01:38, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Verifiability#Sources: "In general, the most reliable sources are peer-reviewed journals and books published in university presses; university-level textbooks; magazines, journals, and books published by respected publishing houses; and mainstream newspapers. Electronic media may also be used."
See Wikipedia:Verifiability#Sources —Preceding unsigned comment added by DTMGO ( talk • contribs) 02:56, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
And apparently then you stopped reading, the "out of context" comment comes from talking about science. The problem is that economics is thought by many to not qualify as an academic field, i.e. a science in the strict definition. This might be offensive to some here, but it is a generalized view. And that is not a small minority view, but a very significant one. Any real scientist knows what it is to really know something, what it takes, for example to understand a chemical reactor and predict its behaviour exactly over a wide range of conditions and scenarios. Because how many laws has economics come up with? one or two? Plus we are in the section of criticism, and economics is being criticised for its lack of understanding of the economic system, in cover pages of major newspapers and magazines, and even within business schools. Economics, politics, business are not considered science by a significant proportion. You are not talking about physics or something like that, don't squarely extrapolate to economics.
--
DTMGO (
talk)
03:40, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
Stepopen please read NPOV , all significants views are to be presented. Plus the inconsistencies in Wikipedia's policies are to be resolved with Wikipedia, not a random article. Pluse like I said, I don't see you deleting newspaper sources from all the purported academic fields in Wikipedia. Your rampage on a significant portion of this encyclopedia would be reversed. Wikiant, stick to the article, not the editors, follow Wikipedia policy. -- DTMGO ( talk) 12:52, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
Check out the lead article in Economist What went wrong with economics Its got links to two articles on macroeconomics and financial economics, and their flaws. Good material for framing criticism on economics. Let's discuss. Don't shoot the messenger. -- DTMGO ( talk) 22:31, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
Wikiant and Cretog8: I would propose the following: Establish that criticism of inaccurate economic forecasts is notable, then discuss how forecasts are made (i.e. econometric forecasts, predictions markets, or non-quantitative forecasts a la Nouriel Rubini, for lack of a better word). Then explain why forecasts are usually not very accurate, i.e. econometrics problem (is GDP trend stationary or a random walk with drift, regime shifts etc.), cognitive biases of the forecasters, the Lucas critique and complexity. Seems that these issues are the important ones, probably possible to summarize in one paragraph by using appropriate wikilinks to the technical terms.
I am probably not going to write this section, but if anyone with at least some expertise will write a paragraph similar to what I proposed he or she has my support. Anything superficial, taken from newspapers or randomly googled studies without any context, I will remove that on sight. Stepopen ( talk) 21:59, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
BTW why don't go on to delete the definition of Science in Wikipedia, because it does not mesh well with economics here. -- DTMGO ( talk) 00:00, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
Having read the "Criticism of Economics" section (I haven't read the preceding section just yet) I would like to voice a concern.
Firstly, economics is quite simply the study of the economy. The quote in the articles' introduction (Lional Robbins) tells the reader of the focus of the study. None the less; it is simply the study of an economy or economic phenomenon.
The author of the criticisms section has provided us with a number of issues that only highlight the issues within the subject field itself. Whether or not the Malthusian trap is possible should not be considered a critism of economics but simply a criticism of the economist (or more appropriately his conclusions). Furthermore, while such disagreements are not the sole criteria of a 'science', it could not be a science without internal disagreements. Then it would be a hegemony.
Before we lose our footprints in mud (and believe me we are in the thick of it) I do recognise that the article is concerned with the field (or perspective)of economics that is predominant throughout the world; call it capitalism or laisse faire, or whatever you like. However, the section of the article I am referring to does not address the short comings of the filed itself but mis-applications of science itself. Basically, economics doesn't open sweat shops, people do.
I do feel there is room for a criticisms section, but could the author please bear the above points in mind.
—Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.209.74.201 ( talk) 16:25, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
It is difficult to navigate the various articles touching on the broad subject of economics. I feel it would be of value to tabulate a suggested sequence of links to expedite an understanding of the basics for the beginner. Don Seib 00:09, 4 September 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by SEIBasaurus ( talk • contribs)
By accident found article Outline of economics which fills the need described above. Added link to it in article Economics. Don Seib 01:04, 4 September 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by SEIBasaurus ( talk • contribs)
Recently an editor removed an article link to information in a section and gave not so good a reason. This is a pattern of one editor that has a certain view of weight and mainstream, in economics articles in my opinion. Maintaining a neutral pov is essential for subjects and this material has been stable, and that is meant in a positive way for some time and it was directly connected to the information below it. I am thinking if this type of editing continues by this one editor, that editor could be topic banned on economics articles, as having difficulty in my opinion in evaluating weight which is misconstrued with fringe and giving a false weight to mainstream also. Here is the edit with the information taken out, which has been put back in again in the next edit here Thanks. - skip sievert ( talk) 16:28, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
The Economics and other subjects section some time back became a bit of a ghetto where we turned a blind eye to material which didn't belong in order to avoid argument. This desire to avoid strife if it's contained is understandable, but still, ideally the section should be cleaned up.
The last two paragraphs are a bit of a muddle of inter-related ideas, so it's hard to know what should stay or go. It's possible something should stay, but likely the weight should be cut down.
Currently the "main articles" links up top are: Philosophy of economics, Law and Economics, Political economy, Natural resource economics, and Thermoeconomics. I apologize for removing the Thermoeconomics link, since it's appropriate there so long as thermoeconomics is mentioned in the section. However, looking at those categories, I would remove Philosophy of economics and Thermoeconomics as not being nearly as significant as the others. I don't know that Natural resource economics really belongs in "other subjects" as it's a typical application of economics just as Labor economics is. If it does belong in the section, it should be given a paragraph or so related to it, possibly one combining natural resource economics, environmental economics and possibly ecological economics. CRETOG8( t/ c) 16:56, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
As I mentioned above, the Economics and other subjects section has been a mess, but ignored for some time. The criticisms section has received similar not-so-benign neglect. I don't hold much hope for it at this time, but I do hope once we've hashed out weight issues better, we can come back to this section to figure out the appropriate weighting of various criticisms. I think it would be valuable if, instead of being a grab-bag, this section had enough coherence that we'd feel right taking something from it and putting it in the lead as part of the article summary. CRETOG8( t/ c) 17:06, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
I am getting motivated to be a builder on the section of criticism of economics. —Preceding unsigned comment added by DTMGO ( talk • contribs) 20:19, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
"The elimination of article content cannot be justified under this policy on the grounds that it is "POV"."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view -- DTMGO ( talk) 20:23, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
If someone here is an economist or not should not affect the neutrality of criticism to economics. Otherwise it just shows your lack of professionalism objectivism and scientific training to be self critical. -- DTMGO ( talk) 23:32, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
Check out the latest adbusters magazine, its about Thought Control in Economics, very timely given the current low status of economics amongst wide sectors of the population. https://www.adbusters.org/magazine/85 -- DTMGO ( talk) 04:05, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
Check out the 8 page article in New York Times Magazine, September 6, 2009, How Did Economists Get It So Wrong? By PAUL Krugman, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/06/magazine/06Economic-t.html?em This is starting to look very far from 'recentism', and the problem is not restricted to 'macroeconomics' as some here believe. The problem is structural and social, affecting a pseudoscience whose practitioners claim it is a science, hahaha. -- DTMGO ( talk) 16:38, 11 September 2009 (UTC)
Economics is not a SCIENCE, results can not be reproduced, results can not be verified. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.52.96.137 ( talk) 06:56, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
The economy is no longer based on scarcity. There is an abundance of resources, including food, clothes and all necessities. Mechanization has allowed for this to come to be. Only waste and inefficiency makes resources scarce in some areas, while abundant in others. It is on these grounds that I contest the definition of Economy in the main section. -- Jsg278 ( talk) 02:32, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
As suggested above, I've deleted a bunch of references to the fringe theory of Thermoeconomics, which has almost zero currency within economics. At best this is a subset of econophysics which is (appropriately) mentioned very briefly. There are a number of more notable schools and approaches that don't get mentioned at all (feminist economics, the historical school, and more listed in Schools of Economics). This article should be a guide to what is actually happening in economics and not to the enthusiasms of particular editors. JQ ( talk) 07:41, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
(outdent) There are overlapping problems with some of the material, and it's possible that there can be improvement to solve some of the problems. There is a problem with weight, and there is a problem with a non-standard identification of energy economics (which is a field within economics just as labor economics and agricultural economics are). The Encyclopedia of Earth doesn't sit well with me as a reliable source, which might be worth taking to discussion by itself. And there's other things, but there's also a problem of a confusing bunch of apparently related stuff-the writing is just not clear. If it was made more clear, then it would be easier to decide how/if to include it in the article. So here's a couple paragraphs which were pulled, if those could be clarified on the talk page, then it might help to include some in the article. It might also help to distinguish these approaches from econophysics. CRETOG8( t/ c) 16:36, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
Energy economics relating to thermoeconomics, is a broad scientific subject area which includes topics related to supply and use of energy in societies. Thermoeconomists argue that economic systems always involve matter, energy, entropy, and information. [5] Thermoeconomics is based on the proposition that the role of energy in biological evolution should be defined and understood through the second law of thermodynamics but in terms of such economic criteria as productivity, efficiency, and especially the costs and benefits of the various mechanisms for capturing and utilizing available energy to build biomass and do work. [6] [7] As a result, thermoeconomics are often discussed in the field of ecological economics, which itself is related to the fields of sustainability and sustainable development.
Georgescu-Roegen reintroduced into economics, the concept of entropy from thermodynamics (as distinguished from the mechanistic foundation of neoclassical economics drawn from Newtonian physics) and did foundational work which later developed into evolutionary economics. His work contributed significantly to bioeconomics and to ecological economics. [8] [9] [10] [11] [12]
(outdent) Based on this NYT bit, I'm willing to accept a link to thermoeconomics, but to me, that only establishes its notability enough to be tacked onto the list of "other schools and approaches". I've carried this over to The Wikiproject talk page for more general discussion. CRETOG8( t/ c) 15:50, 26 October 2009 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 | Archive 5 | Archive 6 | → | Archive 9 |
What, currently, is the most popular and/or authoritative textbook in economics, or microeconomics? Slrubenstein | Talk 16:16, 3 October 2008 (UTC)
Depends on the books selection by University staff, and/or practising economists who want to keep a 'manual' for the basics.
All the text books borrow from a diverse range of authors, aggregating theory that has been accumulated over a number of decades. Try Simon Begg if you want to. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.254.147.100 ( talk) 11:50, 8 October 2008 (UTC)
What about Das's Traders, Guns and Money? Slrubenstein | Talk 21:48, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
If gas was 5.09 a gallon and it jumped 6 cant on saturday and another 6 cent on sunday and another 5 cent on monday. how would it look in graph form? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 97.84.168.194 ( talk) 22:48, 22 October 2008 (UTC)
I came to Wikipedia looking for information on what the "real economy" is, since I've heard that phrase used lately, and it seems very strange to me. The phrase "real economy" link to this page, but the article does not mention it at all. My questions are (1) should there be an article about the "real economy" and (2) if not, should there be a section in this article explaining it? Squandermania ( talk) 23:41, 19 November 2008 (UTC)
I have just started a page on applied economics that used to simply redirect to economics. I was looking on wikipedia for some discussion of applied economics but found none. So I have produced this. I realise its content and style might be a bit problematic and it is over-reliant on Backhouse and Biddle but I think we needed a page on applied economics. More on econometrics might be desirable. Just thought we could try this for starters and see how it goes. ( Msrasnw ( talk) 00:18, 28 December 2008 (UTC))
Under the microeconomics section the first line is:
I think this would be better in the introduction. I would also like to change it/add another "distinction".
It might then read
Does anyone mind? ( Msrasnw ( talk) 17:15, 31 December 2008 (UTC))
There is an interesting article in the new Journal of Economic Perspectives on the definition of economics. This article could be useful for the introduction, which seems to have been discussed again and again on this page, without a clear conclusion. Well, the article will not really help in establishing consensus, as the conclusion of the authors is that even in the profession there is no consensus definition (not even among mainstream economists). It would also be good material for a longer discussion in the main text, as first paragraph before discussing subfields of economics. Afroghost ( talk) 19:03, 9 February 2009 (UTC)
The intro here definitely sucks. How about in a nutshell "study of supply and demand as functions of price and quantity".
121.209.235.20 (
talk)
10:08, 16 March 2009 (UTC)
Descriptive material in the Economics#External links "General information" section for "Resources for Economists" (RFE) was recently removed here with comment "fmt links." On this see the wp guideline Wikipedia:External links#External links section, which suggests including such material, in particular:
Many potential readers of RFE might be interested in it with the following addition:
It serves a function similar to a wp:lead, which has language similar to the first indented quote above. Would it not be reasonable to consider the interests of such readers? P.S. I did appreciate the earlier point of not including unnecessary links. In fact, that is how I came to the above Edit. -- Thomasmeeks ( talk) 19:08, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
I appreciate the comments above. I'll use the grammatical third person below and add background to facilitate others following the discussion. I do agree with Mr. Bos's point that added descriptive comments for other sites besides RFE could help (e.g., the U.K. university-based Intute: Economics).I'll concentrate on RFE below. The article Edit here accompanying Mr. King's comment above restored only " American Economic Association" from my indented Edit above and in the process obscured what was a clear RFE-AEA connection (as "sponsored" & "sponsor").
Besides the above, there is this article-Edit summary by Mr. King:
I believe that restoring (for a 2nd time) the rest of my Edit above:
is also warranted, on the following more-specific informational grounds:
I think the detail given in the section named Classcial Political Economy is rather extra extensive. It contains some useful information about classcial economics, but I think, that it would be better to put this detail about the various proponents and econmists of the classical school under the article dedicated to that school.
The article Classical Economics [1] does not have much detail about Ricardo, Malthus or Mill. But this article explains them in quite detail.
I think that the information in this section should be summerized and the detail should be placed in the relevent page on Classical Economics.-- Sajjad Arif ( talk) 11:49, 26 May 2009 (UTC)
I removed the Feynman quote because its use appeared to be over reaching. Feynman was speaking about social sciences in general, not economics specifically. The example he uses in the subsequent (unquoted) sentences doesn't deal with economics. He does mention economics specifically earlier in the book (p. 105). There, he says that economics achieves "somewhat similar success (to the physical and life sciences)..." Wikiant ( talk) 17:24, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
http://books.google.ca/books?id=Md0IirlFUfEC&dq=richard+feynman+pleasure+finding+things+out&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=en&ei=rq4qSs69D5jqtgOC6dHfCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4 -- DTMGO ( talk) 18:14, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
There has been a recent flurry of POV edits. The latest (in part):
"But even with these advances (some of which can be also used by astrology) economics is limited as a science because it cannot perform controlled scientific experiments. Another example of it shortcomings as a scientific discipline is its lack of reproducibility, one of the main principles of the scientific method."
1. The parenthetical phrase in the first sentence, whether true or not, is POV by virtue of the sense it lends to the sentence. 2. The first sentence is false. Experimental Economics is an entire branch of the discipline devoted to controlled experimentation. Vernon Smith (a recent Nobel Laureate) receievd his prize for his work in this area. 3. The second sentence is similarly false. For example, look at the voluminous literature on minimum wage for an example of (literally hundreds) of studies that conform to reproducibility.
Wikiant ( talk) 18:19, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
This bit in response to the Galbraith quote might be WP:OR: Noteworthy, however, is that Galbraith's comments were made in 1975 -- well before the ubiquity of computers for data analysis, the availability of large data sets, and the advent of modern econometric techniques for forecasting.. Does the article specifically respond to Galbraith on that? If not, I don't think it's appropriate there. (I'm not sure if the Galbraith quote is appropriate itself or not, but that's a different question.) CRETOG8( t/ c) 18:41, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
These responses were edited in (deleted by you) subsequent revisions. -- DTMGO ( talk) 23:32, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
It would help the discussion if you discussed, otherwise do not delete stuff with the excuse of discussing.-- DTMGO ( talk) 23:32, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
I propose the following addition to 'Criticisms of economics'.
(addition starts)
The theory of Money-Bargaining offers a more realistic representation of economic transactions than neoclassical economic theory. The differences between money-bargaining theory and neoclassical theory may be summarised as follows:
(addition ends)
If an established user approves of this addition, perhaps he or she would edit the article. Please include a link to the Wikipedia article on 'Money-Bargaining'.
Response:
Thanks for all the comments.
It appears I am now permitted to edit the page directly, but the comments indicate that it would not be appropriate to make the proposed insertion. There is, in any case, a proposal to delete the main entries on 'Money-Bargaining' and 'Support-Bargaining', to which I have responded on the Money-Bargaining deletion page. I am copying this also to the Money-Bargaining deletion page, since it is relevant to the proposal for deletion.
We have to separate the questions of what is right and what is respectable. If Wikipedia is only concerned with material that is derived from respectable sources, then the queries about the sources (meaning the publisher, Book Guild), may be relevant. The question of what is right would be of no significance.
While the Book Guild is not a conventional publisher, it is not of the undiscriminating kind. It has some distinguished authors. It has published Lord (Denis) Healey, the former British Chancellor of the Exchequer. It also publishes Peter Evans, who was Home Affairs correspondent on the Times for seventeen years. [All the references have ISBN Numbers: Spread (1984) 0-333-36569-0; Spread (2004) 1-85776-860-4; Spread (2008) 978-1-84624-251-9.]
As regards what is right, the 'open edit' approach of Wikipedia suggests a commitment to a wider range of opinion than can be accommodated in formal 'establishment' encyclopaedias. This seems to suggest also acceptance of a broader range of sources. There is an implication that the establishment and its 'respectable' sources could be wrong, or at least incomplete.
In this case, there is a real probability that respectable sources are wrong. If needs and wants are situation-related (see 1 in the proposed insertion above, and 'Money-Bargaining/Situation related selection' in the Wikipedia article proposed for deletion), then economics has been wrong for over a hundred years. Money-bargaining gives a much more realistic account of monetary exchange. Democratic theory is more principles and aspirations than a theory of how government works. The people cannot possibly govern in any direct sense. Support-bargaining gives a realistic account of political, social and intellectual processes.
My entries and proposed insertions are designated 'fringe theory', which is fair enough from the viewpoint of orthodox economic and political theory. The designation makes it easy to delete them. But bear in mind that the fringe may become the mainstream when the paradigm changes. If my entries are designated 'alternative paradigm' it may not be so easy to delete them.
Furthermore, alternative paradigms will probably not be promulgated through orthodox institutions and publishers. Orthodox, or respectable, theory uses orthodox and respectable publishers. Because of the viability condition (see 2 above, and 'Money-Bargaining/Companies as money-bargaining agencies' in the article), orthodox publishers find it hard to publish unorthodox theory. Academics generally approve, buy, read and teach orthodox theory. So unorthodox theory has to use unorthodox publishers. If Wikipedia rules out the use of unorthodox sources, it may also be excluding right theory.
Papersign ( talk) 09:42, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
Spread, Patrick (1984). A Theory of Support and Money Bargaining, London. Macmillan
Spread, Patrick (2004). Getting It Right: Economics and the Security of Support, Sussex, Book Guild
Spread, Patrick (2008). Support-Bargaining: The Mechanics of Democracy Revealed, Sussex, Book Guild
Papersign ( talk) 13:44, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
I'm afraid this image is completely wrong :
Total utility can only fall when marginal utility is negative. -- Hooiwind ( talk) 15:03, 14 June 2009 (UTC)
Didn't want to break the flow from the above if there is more to say there.
Well, given the the discussion 3 (corrected) paragraphs up from the MU figure diagram in Economics#Supply and demand, one can make a case that that any MU figure is unnecessary in this survey article, which is on Econ., not Microeconomic theory. The latter, note, does not include the MU-TU fig.§ Demand-curve paragraph measures MU in, well, the local currency, not "utils". It identifies MU as what people would be willing to pay for an extra unit sliding down the demand curve, which should not raise insurmountable questions. The MU rising at first on the face of it suggests a positively-sloped demand curve. Sure, there's an answer to that (eventually declining MU). But why raise the question unnecessarily unless the question is answered there? Methodological individualism in the economic sense of botom-up model-building is fine, but typical uses are for explaining patterns of aggregate behavior, whether of a group of students in a laboratory or buyers in a market per deamnd and price. Sure, falsifying a widely-used simplifying assumption about individual behavior can win you a Nobel prize, but that's for a different section of this article. In short, I believe that in the present section, the figure unnecessarily raises more questions than it answers, and so has a net negative value added because of the nice explanation of MU 2 para. above without resort to it.
§ Maybe because it's about a century out of date (superceded by ordinal utility), and many principles students (distinct fron intermediate-micro students), are the last to hear of it, giving their instructors something to unteach them about later. -- Thomasmeeks ( talk) 01:59, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
Besides being a linguist, Noam Chomsky is a prominent all-around social critic. I'm not all that impressed with the quality of his criticism, but he qualifies in general to include in a "criticism" section.
Start Noam Chomsky, a social/economic critic since the 1960s is also known widely as a political dissident, and anarchist, [1] and a libertarian socialist., and has stated that his "personal visions are fairly traditional anarchist ones, with origins in The Enlightenment and classical liberalism". Chomsky has praised libertarian socialism. [2] He is a sympathizer of anarcho-syndicalism. [3] End
Skip--your version is just an introduction to Chomsky with no substance relevant to this article. I'm going to pull it out. As for everything else, this is threatening to become personal, so I'm going to withhold comment for a bit and hope someone else chimes in. CRETOG8( t/ c) 22:25, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
So in the end the result so far is total deletion of the Chomsky criticism...smells like censorship again. I think we should include but reduce Chomsky's criticism on the assumptions of economics, after all he is one of the most important living public intellectuals, an outstanding researcher, the most quoted person in the social sciences. The proposal to limit the article content to the view of economists is preposterous, economics affects everybody's lives as economists are usual advisors to government, and to limit criticism of economics to economics is again, preposterous. Furthermore, it doesn't matter who Chomsky is, because what he says about this is what matters, and I think he found economists with their pants down on this one.
--
DTMGO (
talk)
23:37, 22 June 2009 (UTC)
You misunderstand, Chomsky himself is not censored. What is censored here is criticism on economics. Chomsky not connected to economic thought? says who? There is one thing that some specialists here need to understand. Economics is very related to politics. YOu cannot separate them. So far here all the PHDs or whatever titles people carry as banner here have avoided the issues he is raising, why don't we talk about those, like labor and capital mobility, and the role of MNC in the economy, the nanny state, and how economic assumptions have not or do not take those into consideration. This has nothing to do with Chomsky's regard for anarchosyndicalism. Stick to the topic. Stick to the issues.
Anyway that economists do not coer the role of nanny government in economic issues is a pretty extended view, just look around. Or that economists like Friedman or the Economist magazine preach "free trade", but only in the manner that is advantageous for some, e.g. England in India, or more recent to the dislike of some, NAFTA. I am very surprised that this is news to many here. -- DTMGO ( talk) 00:47, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
-- DTMGO ( talk) 02:00, 23 June 2009 (UTC)
-- DTMGO ( talk) 00:19, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
DTMGO why are you so adamant at pushing your agenda here. If we start putting Chomsky in its a slippery slope. There are plenty of valid criticisms of economics, but this isn't one of them. No offence, but from reading your comments, I am coming to the conclusion that you have little to no understanding of economics, and what knowledge you do have has been from amateurish 'web research' or 'listening to pundits on the news'. Indeed this problem of 'armchair critics' hijacking serious articles is endemic at Wikipedia, and unfortunately cannot really be eliminated due to the inherent nature of the project. Suicup ( talk) 03:49, 25 June 2009 (UTC)
-- DTMGO ( talk) 00:09, 26 June 2009 (UTC)"Ricardo's "science" was founded on the principle that capital is more or less immobile and labor highly mobile. We are enjoined today to worship the consequences of Ricardo's science, despite the fact that the assumptions on which they are based have been reversed: capital is highly mobile, and labor virtually immobile -- libertarian conservatives lead the way in rejecting Adam Smith's principle that "free circulation of labor" is a cornerstone of free trade, in keeping with their contempt for markets (except for the weak). Other assumptions of the "science" are so radically false that the whole topic is hard to take seriously: among them, the abstraction from severe market distortions resulting from the centrally-managed transactions of the huge corporate structures that dominate the international economy, and the reliance on the "nanny state" that has been such a decisive factor in economic growth and the specific forms it has taken throughout history, and remains so." [5]
DTMGO, to give you an example of what I was referring to, I will respond to a point you made above:
International trade is a highly active area of economic research. Much work has been done to address some of the failures of the traditional Ricadian 'comparative advantage' analysis to explain real trade flows, for example New Trade Theory. Indeed, the most recent Nobel Prize in economics was awarded to one of the founders of this field in international economics. To be honest, I don't really know what you are trying to argue here. Simplifying assumptions are deliberately put into economic models, because despite the simplification, the key economic insight can still be gained. Deconstructing these assumptions is what you spend most of your time doing in higher level economic study. And if some piece of economic theory turns out to be wrong or flawed, that doesn't mean that Economics as a field is completely discredited as you seem to be asserting, but rather it is a sign of healthy academic progress. In fact, this is the same for any field of knowledge. For a layman like yourself, I highly recommend books like Freakanomics, and blogs including Krugman's NY Times one, as they are quite accessible IMO. If this piques your interest, then consider buying an introductory/intermediate textbook, which will then enable you to understand the higher level blogs, academic literature, and media. If you are hooked, then consider enrolling in a Bachelor of Economics... :) I don't mean to be patronizing or to attack you personally DTMGO, however it is hard to take your points seriously, in a serious article like this, if you are unable to demonstrate a proper understanding of issues. Regards Suicup ( talk) 08:44, 29 June 2009 (UTC)
-- DTMGO ( talk) 01:33, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
There is no point in our continuing to discuss this as we appear not to share a common intellectual starting point. I suggest we simply put it to a vote to see whether or not there is a compelling consensus. The question is: Do we include Chomsky's criticism and corresponding counter-criticisms. My vote is "no." Wikiant ( talk) 01:56, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
Comment If that is the case then a more generalized Chomsky comment is more appropriate in the Criticisms of economics section and not the Criticisms of assumptions section, because Chomksy is a generalist in this regard if he is notable at all, and is not known as an economist except maybe as a general flinger of ideas against some concepts connected. I also do not think it is possible to shorten or paraphrase this quote by Chomsky... because as it stands it is just not interesting or would it be an improvement to the article. skip sievert ( talk) 03:01, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
Fair enough, I will look for something more specific from Chomsky on economics (and economists) otherwise I think its a 3-2 in favor of not including the Chomsky view. -- DTMGO ( talk) 04:23, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
I rewrote this section as I think it is far more useful to classify 'business cycle' as a major topic in macro, rather than 'depressions'. Also it fits better with macroeconomics. That said, I still have some more work to do. Suicup ( talk) 08:32, 30 June 2009 (UTC)
I'm willing to discuss how to include the criticisms that DTMGO seems to want to include in this article, but to do so, I need to understand those criticisms. Right now, it reads as if the point is "Economics sucks!" and then choosing bits here and there which kinda support this view. That's not good enough.
So, what's the point? Is it specifically about the success or failure at predicting the recent financial crisis? Is it about prediction/forecasting in general? Is it that economics isn't a real science? There are already criticisms in the article. New criticisms might fall in with those. In any case, whether one agrees with the criticisms or not isn't the point, it's whether they are notable criticisms by others. CRETOG8( t/ c) 21:27, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
-- DTMGO ( talk) 23:32, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
-- DTMGO ( talk) 00:37, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
Wait a minute, there is been several comments in discussion (in which you participated) on Economist to move this criticism to Economics. Now you are taking it to somewhere totally different. So I have heard a bunch of things, first that it was biased POV not verified out of place and so on, your latest take is let's move it to the so and so minisection? The fact that economists missed the second greatest financial crisis in history? Talk about neutral point of view. -- DTMGO ( talk) 15:12, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
OK I found the evidence that Wikiant was looking for, from another reputable source, the New York Times [6]: "Recessions are signal events in any modern economy. And yet remarkably, the profession of economics is quite bad at predicting them. A recent study looked at “consensus forecasts” (the predictions of large groups of economists) that were made in advance of 60 different national recessions that hit around the world in the ’90s: in 97 percent of the cases, the study found, the economists failed to predict the coming contraction a year in advance. On those rare occasions when economists did successfully predict recessions, they significantly underestimated the severity of the downturns. Worse, many of the economists failed to anticipate recessions that occurred as soon as two months later." So we have Businessweek, Wharton and NYT saying the same thing, a couple in article titles. Does this qualify now? -- DTMGO ( talk) 15:28, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
And no, its not just about the current crisis, its about profession of economics is quite bad at predicting them. Let us keep at least the references to Businessweek, Wharton and NYT saying the same thing. I will proceed. -- DTMGO ( talk) 16:31, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
-- DTMGO ( talk) 04:59, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
Its well established your only contribution here was to delete then.
"Popular sentiment" is not just sentiment this time, unless you believe that criticising economics in the area of predicting recessions and forecasting is a "sentiment".
BTW can you provide a list of academic institutions that are reliable in your view, and your criteria.
You don't seem to go around other articles and delete all those parts that reference newspapers. Why aren't you consistent? This is not the first time. -- DTMGO ( talk) 01:38, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Verifiability#Sources: "In general, the most reliable sources are peer-reviewed journals and books published in university presses; university-level textbooks; magazines, journals, and books published by respected publishing houses; and mainstream newspapers. Electronic media may also be used."
See Wikipedia:Verifiability#Sources —Preceding unsigned comment added by DTMGO ( talk • contribs) 02:56, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
And apparently then you stopped reading, the "out of context" comment comes from talking about science. The problem is that economics is thought by many to not qualify as an academic field, i.e. a science in the strict definition. This might be offensive to some here, but it is a generalized view. And that is not a small minority view, but a very significant one. Any real scientist knows what it is to really know something, what it takes, for example to understand a chemical reactor and predict its behaviour exactly over a wide range of conditions and scenarios. Because how many laws has economics come up with? one or two? Plus we are in the section of criticism, and economics is being criticised for its lack of understanding of the economic system, in cover pages of major newspapers and magazines, and even within business schools. Economics, politics, business are not considered science by a significant proportion. You are not talking about physics or something like that, don't squarely extrapolate to economics.
--
DTMGO (
talk)
03:40, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
Stepopen please read NPOV , all significants views are to be presented. Plus the inconsistencies in Wikipedia's policies are to be resolved with Wikipedia, not a random article. Pluse like I said, I don't see you deleting newspaper sources from all the purported academic fields in Wikipedia. Your rampage on a significant portion of this encyclopedia would be reversed. Wikiant, stick to the article, not the editors, follow Wikipedia policy. -- DTMGO ( talk) 12:52, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
Check out the lead article in Economist What went wrong with economics Its got links to two articles on macroeconomics and financial economics, and their flaws. Good material for framing criticism on economics. Let's discuss. Don't shoot the messenger. -- DTMGO ( talk) 22:31, 17 July 2009 (UTC)
Wikiant and Cretog8: I would propose the following: Establish that criticism of inaccurate economic forecasts is notable, then discuss how forecasts are made (i.e. econometric forecasts, predictions markets, or non-quantitative forecasts a la Nouriel Rubini, for lack of a better word). Then explain why forecasts are usually not very accurate, i.e. econometrics problem (is GDP trend stationary or a random walk with drift, regime shifts etc.), cognitive biases of the forecasters, the Lucas critique and complexity. Seems that these issues are the important ones, probably possible to summarize in one paragraph by using appropriate wikilinks to the technical terms.
I am probably not going to write this section, but if anyone with at least some expertise will write a paragraph similar to what I proposed he or she has my support. Anything superficial, taken from newspapers or randomly googled studies without any context, I will remove that on sight. Stepopen ( talk) 21:59, 11 June 2009 (UTC)
BTW why don't go on to delete the definition of Science in Wikipedia, because it does not mesh well with economics here. -- DTMGO ( talk) 00:00, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
Having read the "Criticism of Economics" section (I haven't read the preceding section just yet) I would like to voice a concern.
Firstly, economics is quite simply the study of the economy. The quote in the articles' introduction (Lional Robbins) tells the reader of the focus of the study. None the less; it is simply the study of an economy or economic phenomenon.
The author of the criticisms section has provided us with a number of issues that only highlight the issues within the subject field itself. Whether or not the Malthusian trap is possible should not be considered a critism of economics but simply a criticism of the economist (or more appropriately his conclusions). Furthermore, while such disagreements are not the sole criteria of a 'science', it could not be a science without internal disagreements. Then it would be a hegemony.
Before we lose our footprints in mud (and believe me we are in the thick of it) I do recognise that the article is concerned with the field (or perspective)of economics that is predominant throughout the world; call it capitalism or laisse faire, or whatever you like. However, the section of the article I am referring to does not address the short comings of the filed itself but mis-applications of science itself. Basically, economics doesn't open sweat shops, people do.
I do feel there is room for a criticisms section, but could the author please bear the above points in mind.
—Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.209.74.201 ( talk) 16:25, 2 September 2009 (UTC)
It is difficult to navigate the various articles touching on the broad subject of economics. I feel it would be of value to tabulate a suggested sequence of links to expedite an understanding of the basics for the beginner. Don Seib 00:09, 4 September 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by SEIBasaurus ( talk • contribs)
By accident found article Outline of economics which fills the need described above. Added link to it in article Economics. Don Seib 01:04, 4 September 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by SEIBasaurus ( talk • contribs)
Recently an editor removed an article link to information in a section and gave not so good a reason. This is a pattern of one editor that has a certain view of weight and mainstream, in economics articles in my opinion. Maintaining a neutral pov is essential for subjects and this material has been stable, and that is meant in a positive way for some time and it was directly connected to the information below it. I am thinking if this type of editing continues by this one editor, that editor could be topic banned on economics articles, as having difficulty in my opinion in evaluating weight which is misconstrued with fringe and giving a false weight to mainstream also. Here is the edit with the information taken out, which has been put back in again in the next edit here Thanks. - skip sievert ( talk) 16:28, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
The Economics and other subjects section some time back became a bit of a ghetto where we turned a blind eye to material which didn't belong in order to avoid argument. This desire to avoid strife if it's contained is understandable, but still, ideally the section should be cleaned up.
The last two paragraphs are a bit of a muddle of inter-related ideas, so it's hard to know what should stay or go. It's possible something should stay, but likely the weight should be cut down.
Currently the "main articles" links up top are: Philosophy of economics, Law and Economics, Political economy, Natural resource economics, and Thermoeconomics. I apologize for removing the Thermoeconomics link, since it's appropriate there so long as thermoeconomics is mentioned in the section. However, looking at those categories, I would remove Philosophy of economics and Thermoeconomics as not being nearly as significant as the others. I don't know that Natural resource economics really belongs in "other subjects" as it's a typical application of economics just as Labor economics is. If it does belong in the section, it should be given a paragraph or so related to it, possibly one combining natural resource economics, environmental economics and possibly ecological economics. CRETOG8( t/ c) 16:56, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
As I mentioned above, the Economics and other subjects section has been a mess, but ignored for some time. The criticisms section has received similar not-so-benign neglect. I don't hold much hope for it at this time, but I do hope once we've hashed out weight issues better, we can come back to this section to figure out the appropriate weighting of various criticisms. I think it would be valuable if, instead of being a grab-bag, this section had enough coherence that we'd feel right taking something from it and putting it in the lead as part of the article summary. CRETOG8( t/ c) 17:06, 9 October 2009 (UTC)
I am getting motivated to be a builder on the section of criticism of economics. —Preceding unsigned comment added by DTMGO ( talk • contribs) 20:19, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
"The elimination of article content cannot be justified under this policy on the grounds that it is "POV"."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view -- DTMGO ( talk) 20:23, 6 June 2009 (UTC)
If someone here is an economist or not should not affect the neutrality of criticism to economics. Otherwise it just shows your lack of professionalism objectivism and scientific training to be self critical. -- DTMGO ( talk) 23:32, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
Check out the latest adbusters magazine, its about Thought Control in Economics, very timely given the current low status of economics amongst wide sectors of the population. https://www.adbusters.org/magazine/85 -- DTMGO ( talk) 04:05, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
Check out the 8 page article in New York Times Magazine, September 6, 2009, How Did Economists Get It So Wrong? By PAUL Krugman, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/06/magazine/06Economic-t.html?em This is starting to look very far from 'recentism', and the problem is not restricted to 'macroeconomics' as some here believe. The problem is structural and social, affecting a pseudoscience whose practitioners claim it is a science, hahaha. -- DTMGO ( talk) 16:38, 11 September 2009 (UTC)
Economics is not a SCIENCE, results can not be reproduced, results can not be verified. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.52.96.137 ( talk) 06:56, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
The economy is no longer based on scarcity. There is an abundance of resources, including food, clothes and all necessities. Mechanization has allowed for this to come to be. Only waste and inefficiency makes resources scarce in some areas, while abundant in others. It is on these grounds that I contest the definition of Economy in the main section. -- Jsg278 ( talk) 02:32, 17 December 2009 (UTC)
As suggested above, I've deleted a bunch of references to the fringe theory of Thermoeconomics, which has almost zero currency within economics. At best this is a subset of econophysics which is (appropriately) mentioned very briefly. There are a number of more notable schools and approaches that don't get mentioned at all (feminist economics, the historical school, and more listed in Schools of Economics). This article should be a guide to what is actually happening in economics and not to the enthusiasms of particular editors. JQ ( talk) 07:41, 13 October 2009 (UTC)
(outdent) There are overlapping problems with some of the material, and it's possible that there can be improvement to solve some of the problems. There is a problem with weight, and there is a problem with a non-standard identification of energy economics (which is a field within economics just as labor economics and agricultural economics are). The Encyclopedia of Earth doesn't sit well with me as a reliable source, which might be worth taking to discussion by itself. And there's other things, but there's also a problem of a confusing bunch of apparently related stuff-the writing is just not clear. If it was made more clear, then it would be easier to decide how/if to include it in the article. So here's a couple paragraphs which were pulled, if those could be clarified on the talk page, then it might help to include some in the article. It might also help to distinguish these approaches from econophysics. CRETOG8( t/ c) 16:36, 20 October 2009 (UTC)
Energy economics relating to thermoeconomics, is a broad scientific subject area which includes topics related to supply and use of energy in societies. Thermoeconomists argue that economic systems always involve matter, energy, entropy, and information. [5] Thermoeconomics is based on the proposition that the role of energy in biological evolution should be defined and understood through the second law of thermodynamics but in terms of such economic criteria as productivity, efficiency, and especially the costs and benefits of the various mechanisms for capturing and utilizing available energy to build biomass and do work. [6] [7] As a result, thermoeconomics are often discussed in the field of ecological economics, which itself is related to the fields of sustainability and sustainable development.
Georgescu-Roegen reintroduced into economics, the concept of entropy from thermodynamics (as distinguished from the mechanistic foundation of neoclassical economics drawn from Newtonian physics) and did foundational work which later developed into evolutionary economics. His work contributed significantly to bioeconomics and to ecological economics. [8] [9] [10] [11] [12]
(outdent) Based on this NYT bit, I'm willing to accept a link to thermoeconomics, but to me, that only establishes its notability enough to be tacked onto the list of "other schools and approaches". I've carried this over to The Wikiproject talk page for more general discussion. CRETOG8( t/ c) 15:50, 26 October 2009 (UTC)