Superforecaster, social science, metascience, data science. USA & Canada.
On Twitter or BlueSky you’d find me @thatMikeBishop
Mike Bishop
Karma: 658
I’m a sociologist*, and there is nothing sociologists like to do more than point out where economists go wrong. So if GDP was a worthless figure, I expect the real world entanglement that one of my fellow sociologists would have convinced me of that already.
I’m not saying economists never overinterpret GDP figures, and I’m not saying the consensus of macroeconomists is always correct.
Though I think we might both be better served by quitting conversation and reading actual experts (I don’t claim to be one) I would like to make sure we’re on the same page about the implications of your criticism. Are you not saying that it is essentially worthless to attempt to study economic growth or business cycles empirically because the data is so poor?
*if you can be one without having completed your dissertation yet.
I agree that both a) and b) would have a similar effect in that the widget manufacturer puts to work resources (labor, machines) which would otherwise not be utilized. I wouldn’t recommend either a) or b) because there are many more efficient ways to stimulate the economy. One that my father, who happens to be an economist, has promoted is a temporary tax credit for new hires. More detail. If there are some roads you were going to build a couple years from now, speeding up that investment is probably a good idea in an economic downturn. I’m not defending legislation that actually got passed… I try not to pay too much attention.
To be clear, you are suggesting we might not lose anything by giving up measuring and using GDP figures? I’ll side with the majority of the economics profession… they aren’t perfect but they mostly use GDP data in a reasonable way.
This is a good point. What happens in this individual case would be dominated by random facts about the individuals directly involved. If you imagine the same situation repeated many times, 100 should be plenty, the randomness cancels out.
Never once has it occurred to anyone in the mainstream (and very few outside of the mainstream) that it’s okay for people to produce less, consume less, and have more leisure.
Really? Because I hear economists talk about the value of leisure time quite frequently.
IMO, most economists don’t fetishize GDP the way you suggest they do.
You seem to be denying the benefits of Keynesian stimulus in a downturn. That position is not indefensible, but you’re not defending it, you’re just claiming it.
It is certainly true that some people make too much of GDP, but those numbers can be pretty helpful for answering certain research questions. Let’s not throw the baby out with the bath water.
Of course, gdp only measures goods and services sold, not “household production.”
I think that a majority of economists agree that in many downturns, it helps the economy if people, on the margin, spend a little more. This justifies Keynesian stimulus. Therefore, the economy would be helped if your choice increases the total amount of money changing hands, presumably if you rent the apartment for $X when X>Y. My impression is that in good economic times, marginal spending is not considered to improve economic welfare.
There is other information you want to consider. Tax rates for example, and whether or not the economy is in the sort of downturn that would benefit from stimulus or not.
Regardless, the effects on aggregate supply and demand will be tiny. How much you and your parents value these alternatives is what matters most.
I’d like to share introductory level posts as widely as possible. There are only three with this tag. Can people nominate more of these posts, perhaps messaging the author to encourage them to tag their post “introduction.”
We should link to, stumble on, etc. accessible posts as much as possible. The sequences are great, but intimidating for many people.
Added: Are there more refined tags we’d like to use to indicate who the articles are appropriate for?
Whole Brain Emulation: The Logical Endpoint of Neuroinformatics? (google techtalk by Anders Sandberg)
I assume someone has already linked to this but I didn’t see it so I figured I’d post it.
However, although the comfort that we experience (in the developed world) due to our modern technology is very much a product of the analytic-rational paradigm, that comfort is given roughly equally to everyone and is certainly not given preferentially to the kind of person who most contributed causally to it happening, i.e. to scientists, engineers and great thinkers.
How much have scientists and engineers contributed to our standard of living? Probably a good amount, but why do we have scientists and engineers? My impression is that our current high standard of living is due to the fact that most people are rational, in certain domain specific ways. Namely, they adopt better tools when given the opportunity. They specialize and trade. It seems quite possible that ambitious entrepreneurs, rather than thoughtful rationalists deserve the most credit for past progress.
One vote for the south side (Hyde Park). Is there a meetup or google group? Any way of communicating with other Chicagoans?
the “totally missing out” link goes to the wrong place… should go here: http://meteuphoric.wordpress.com/2010/05/09/why-not-fake-height/
I’m interested in hearing others responses to these questions:
What do you think will happen when I run the program, or its variants? What other variants would you like to see tested?
As for this one:
*Is there a fundamental problem with the model?
As you know, that depends on what we want to use the model for. It ignores all sorts of structure in the real world, but that could end up being a feature rather than a bug.
I am hoping to learn the population standard deviation for the AS quotient. No luck so far, but this paper has the following info: 100 people suspected of having Asperger’s took the test, and then were evaluated by two clinicians using the DSM-IV criteria. The 73 subsequently diagnosed with Asperger’s had a mean of 36.62 and std. dev. of 6.63. The 27 not diagnosed had a mean of 26.22 and std. dev. of 9.39. Needless to say, one should interpret these numbers carefully because of the selection into the study, and due to variation across clinicians in coming to the same diagnosis.
Any idea what share of the general population would report “Severe impairment in reciprocal social interaction?
I guess it would be better to reword that question for the general population. Too many people would switch off when they saw the word “reciprocal.”
I scored 17 but was a little worried that my responses were biased by a desire to believe I am socially proficient. I guess I have no reason to believe I suffer from this bias more than the average person.
Campbell’s Law for another formulation. Interesting that Lucas, Campbell, and Goodhart all published essentially the same idea within a year.
I recommend going to an econ textbook for good questions.