tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740670447258719504.post8681128009450946320..comments2024-03-27T03:00:27.024-04:00Comments on Facts & other stubborn things: Gary on Paradigms and EconomicsEvanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12259004160963531720noreply@blogger.comBlogger21125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740670447258719504.post-69270415803334746162011-08-03T22:20:36.382-04:002011-08-03T22:20:36.382-04:00Gary -
1. What language we use to talk about thing...Gary -<br />1. What language we use to talk about things is a huge deal in Kuhnian understandings of paradigms. <br /><br />2. What about "nothing in economics makes sense, except in light of supply and demand" or "nothing in economics makes sense, except in light of constrained optimization"???<br /><br />What exactly do you think economics consists of - reason.com blog posts about why government is bad and Daily Kos blog posts about why government is good?<br /><br />Anonymous -<br />How is the Lucas critique opposed to the Keynesian paradigm? I'm a little confused by your critique. You <i>rightfully</i> tell Gary that economics isn't about individual models, but then you seem to turn to me and make a big fuss about the evolution of individual models in macroeconomics!<br /><br />I think Gary was on to something with his original point about UFT and modern macro. This - I think - is true. And this accounts for the menagerie of macro models we have. Macroeconomics emerged with a paradigm shift away from general equilibrium approaches to whole economies - however, after that break there have still been various attempts to provide microfoundations consistent with marginalism for those macro models. And that's produced a ton of stuff and a great big question mark for economists. But I don't see every shift in the favorability of these models as a new paradigm shift - at least in any Kuhnian sense (which is of course the sense in which I'm using it).Daniel Kuehnhttp://www.factsandotherstubbornthings.blogspot.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740670447258719504.post-41637345307456217852011-08-03T18:04:47.412-04:002011-08-03T18:04:47.412-04:00Anonymous,
Theodosius Dobzhansky (from whom much ...Anonymous,<br /><br />Theodosius Dobzhansky (from whom much of what we think of as the evolutionary synthesis derives - it is from him that we get the concept of gene mutation) stated the following (here I quote from memory - the phrase being a title of a paper of his):<br /><br />"Nothing in biology makes sense, except in the light of evolution." <br /><br />I struggle to come up with a similar claim regarding economics.Gary Gunnelshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14463810435943252898noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740670447258719504.post-8920202975752822932011-08-03T13:21:55.617-04:002011-08-03T13:21:55.617-04:00Gary,
yet at the same time, virtually every first ...Gary,<br />yet at the same time, virtually every first year PhD student receives the exact same training. <br /><br />economics is done with constrained maximization. this isn't about individual models, this is about how we build models and the fact that we build models at all. this is universal. so I don't know what you're using as a definition of paradigm, but I think it is very clear how economists interpret data, organize ideas, build new theories, and test theories against each other (at least to academic economists), and it is hard to do it any other way and get published in good journals (again public information to economists).<br /><br />btw Daniel, Keynesian economics is not the uncontested paradigm of macroeconomics. Friedman said his thing along time ago, before modern macroeconomics came to be. sure some ideas cross over, but as a framework for studying the macroeconomy, things like the Lucas critique are much closer to an organizing principle. how exactly is modern macro organized by the Keynesian paradigm?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740670447258719504.post-78021721040094794852011-08-03T07:56:38.274-04:002011-08-03T07:56:38.274-04:00Daniel,
I'm sorry, but no - he clearly said t...Daniel,<br /><br />I'm sorry, but no - he clearly said that one uses "Keynesian language" (and that is what he meant by his claim); he did not claim that Keynes brought some sort of scientific revolution to the field (Keynes would have to have been a scientist for that to be the case anyway).<br /><br />What does Kuhn mean by paradigms? In simplest terms he means an achievement of such significance that it is (for a time) acclaimed and used universally. No economic idea has met that criteria; they are all pre-paradigm.Gary Gunnelshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14463810435943252898noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740670447258719504.post-7133676909042210902011-08-03T06:42:37.070-04:002011-08-03T06:42:37.070-04:00RV -
You're right I don't agree with that....RV -<br />You're right I don't agree with that. Kuhn noted several indicators of passing out of pre-paradigm stage, and economics seems to me to pass all of them. <br /><br />The Ricardian period is squishy (sociology always is, isn't it?). But I would say micro passed out of it over the period from 1870 to 1890 - from the marginalists to Marshall's publication. And macro passed out of it somewhere between 1936 and 1947.<br /><br />Perhaps I'll post on his or write on this in the future when I have Kuhn sitting next to me (I'm on a site visit right now), but he's pretty specific about what makes a discipline move out of the pre-paradigm stage. If you think that's not relevant, you're talking about a different theory of scientific progress.Daniel Kuehnhttp://www.factsandotherstubbornthings.blogspot.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740670447258719504.post-10723697230610639182011-08-03T06:38:16.620-04:002011-08-03T06:38:16.620-04:00Gary - I did quote him correctly, I just didn'...Gary - I did quote him correctly, I just didn't say the whole thing. The whole quote of course supports what I'm saying as well - and Friedman's later clarification when everyone went nuts over it supports what I'm saying.<br /><br />We're all "Keynesian" in terms of how we think about and talk about the macroeconomy scientifically. None of us are Keynesians (not even me) if you're simply thinking of Keynes as a model.Daniel Kuehnhttp://www.factsandotherstubbornthings.blogspot.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740670447258719504.post-37306953009055481612011-08-02T20:17:15.551-04:002011-08-02T20:17:15.551-04:00Robert,
+1Robert,<br /><br />+1Gary Gunnelshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14463810435943252898noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740670447258719504.post-77574631626522052142011-08-02T19:48:32.825-04:002011-08-02T19:48:32.825-04:00"The full-cost pricing controversy was a chal..."The full-cost pricing controversy was a challenge to marginalism in the middle of the 20th century."<br /><br />I like Fred Lee on the full-cost controversy. Dan Hausman and Philippe Mongin have an interesting 1998 article on how economists ignore empirical evidence.<br /><br />To me and looking at it from the perspective of the sociology of economics, economics is, in Kuhnian terms, in a pre-paradigm state. I don't think our host will acknowledge that. As far as I can see, mainstream economics is a matter of the willfully ignorant indoctrinating the willfully ignorant.Robert Vienneauhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00872510108133281526noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740670447258719504.post-52646796161168440562011-08-02T16:04:25.558-04:002011-08-02T16:04:25.558-04:00At least quote Friedman correctly:
"In one s...At least quote Friedman correctly:<br /><br />"In one sense, we are all Keynesians now; in another, nobody is any longer a Keynesian."<br /><br />http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,898916,00.html#ixzz1Tu59DAd1Gary Gunnelshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14463810435943252898noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740670447258719504.post-66337381049594979352011-08-02T15:24:19.707-04:002011-08-02T15:24:19.707-04:00anonymous -
Well a lot of the old Keynesian relati...anonymous -<br />Well a lot of the old Keynesian relations still pop out of DSGE models. <br /><br />I think it's important to differentiate models from paradigms. Certainly models change. When I think about a Keynesian paradigm I'm thinking about it more in the sense that Friedman did when he said "we're all Keynesians now".Daniel Kuehnhttp://www.factsandotherstubbornthings.blogspot.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740670447258719504.post-84410392324110418242011-08-02T14:54:56.887-04:002011-08-02T14:54:56.887-04:00"Keynesianism as a paradigm is relatively unc..."Keynesianism as a paradigm is relatively uncontested"<br /><br />is this true? when I open a macroeconomics journal I don't see IS/LM or AD/AS models, I see variants of Kydland and Prescott. Even the New Keynesian stuff is just DSGE with Keynesian frictions built in. <br /><br />but getting back to the point, economics for sure has a dominant paradigm. Agents in economic models are constrained maximizers. The rest is just details. This approach is ubiquitous in economics, and is pretty much what differentiates us from the other social scientists.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740670447258719504.post-70367609710536339742011-08-02T10:19:40.965-04:002011-08-02T10:19:40.965-04:00The full-cost pricing controversy was a challenge ...The full-cost pricing controversy was a challenge to marginalism in the middle of the 20th century.Stravinskynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740670447258719504.post-58449745734062597742011-08-02T09:30:21.422-04:002011-08-02T09:30:21.422-04:00Paul Samuelson said, "I side with Sraffians&q...Paul Samuelson said, "I side with Sraffians" ("A Modern Post-Mortem on Böhm's Capital Theory: Its Vital Normative Flaw Shared By Pre-Sraffian Mainstream Capital", <i>Journal of the History of Economic Thought</i>, V. 23, N. 3 (2001)).<br /><br />Paul Samuelson also said, "My vantage point in the discussion was not neoclassical. It was Sraffian!" ("Samuelson's 'Reply on Marxian Matters'" <i>Journal of Economic Literature</i>, V. 11, N 1 (March 1973)).<br /><br />Paul Samuelson also said, "In this age of Leontief and Sraffa there is no excuse for mystery or partisan polemics in dealing with the purely logical aspects of the problem." ("Understanding the Marxian Notion of Exploitation: A Summary of the So-Called Transformation Problem Between Marxian Values and Competitive Prices", <i>Journal of Economic Literature</i>, V. 9, N. 2 (June 1971)).<br /><br />John von Neumann's exploration of prices of production in his growth model is also not marginalist and not subjectivist.Robert Vienneauhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00872510108133281526noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740670447258719504.post-38921189163960157732011-08-02T09:06:15.945-04:002011-08-02T09:06:15.945-04:00And I believe the last time we took the time to ha...And I believe the last time we took the time to have a think on the implications of my use of the word "just" I was a little curious why you thought a collection of atoms was so impoverished. In other words - I'm not sure I'm smart enough to justify decisively divorcing matter from meaning.<br /><br />Whatever the implications of materialism, I certainly don't intend "just a highly evolved primate" to imply any lack of meaningfulness or spirit or whatever else on the part of humans.Daniel Kuehnhttp://www.factsandotherstubbornthings.blogspot.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740670447258719504.post-18391595588507791162011-08-02T07:56:10.025-04:002011-08-02T07:56:10.025-04:00Dk wrote:
We don't like to be reminded that w...Dk wrote:<br /><br /><i>We don't like to be reminded that we're just a highly evolved primate...</i><br /><br />I think we had this argument before, Daniel, but what do you mean by the word "just" here? Couldn't a physicist recommend doing economics using Newton's laws (or quantum mechanics if you prefer) and saying, "People are just collections of atoms, as amenable to our study as particles in an accelerator." ?Bob Murphyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04001108408649311528noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740670447258719504.post-41593942628400633192011-08-02T07:19:45.228-04:002011-08-02T07:19:45.228-04:00re: "Marxists clearly don't accept margin...re: <i>"Marxists clearly don't accept marginalism"</i><br /><br />And creationists don't accept natural selection. So?<br /><br />(I'll have to take your word that this is true - I don't know much Marxism)Daniel Kuehnhttp://www.factsandotherstubbornthings.blogspot.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740670447258719504.post-41553007618384318352011-08-02T07:08:33.920-04:002011-08-02T07:08:33.920-04:00As for your last comment on people not liking to b...As for your last comment on people not liking to be studied; well, that doesn't apply to me, otherwise I wouldn't like to read stuff like this:<br /><br />http://www1.ku-eichstaett.de/epigr/bilder/$CIL_08_22084.jpg<br /><br />Personally, I love epigraphy (there are volumes and volumes of published epigraphy out there if you are interested - one of the great contributions of positivist history).<br /><br />Marxists clearly don't accept marginalism, and it seems to me that some sort of "objective" measure of value is always creeping into one or another analyses of marginalism.Gary Gunnelshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14463810435943252898noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740670447258719504.post-35984499649146319662011-08-02T06:59:29.753-04:002011-08-02T06:59:29.753-04:00Wait - who isn't a marginalist?!?!?!
And what...Wait - who isn't a marginalist?!?!?!<br /><br />And what doesn't Samuelson accept about supply and demand?Daniel Kuehnhttp://www.factsandotherstubbornthings.blogspot.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740670447258719504.post-32480362597528675582011-08-02T06:53:40.550-04:002011-08-02T06:53:40.550-04:00Ok, I have a busy day. My last word for the day i...Ok, I have a busy day. My last word for the day is this:<br /><br />the more I look at economics the more it looks like history to me, and the less it looks like physics or chemistry or biology.Gary Gunnelshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14463810435943252898noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740670447258719504.post-13840936072608999542011-08-02T06:49:51.527-04:002011-08-02T06:49:51.527-04:00Also, from what I can tell, marginalism isn't ...Also, from what I can tell, marginalism isn't (a) universally accepted, (b) when it is it is often combined with some other concept to make it useful (von Neumann) and (c) for a couple of decades it fell completely out of favor.Gary Gunnelshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14463810435943252898noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1740670447258719504.post-36392148266336038752011-08-02T06:43:07.602-04:002011-08-02T06:43:07.602-04:00I'm sorry, but no. Even the law of supply and...I'm sorry, but no. Even the law of supply and demand is highly contested in your field; see Paul Samuelson for an example. <br /><br />"Moreover, Keynesianism as a paradigm is relatively uncontested."<br /><br />Evolution is not "relatively uncontested." Neither is quantum theory in chemistry. <br /><br />When you have to throw in modifiers like that I don't take your claims seriously.Gary Gunnelshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14463810435943252898noreply@blogger.com