Friday, February 27, 2015

Bill Mitchell — The superiority of economists!

Its the Friday lay day blog and today I briefly discuss economists. What a topic! There is an interesting article just published in the Journal of Economic Perspectives that examines the way economists think of themselves and other social science disciplines. It is a horror story really. Having been immersed in the profession for many years now, I sometimes forget how bad it is. Here is what the study found. The title is a deliberate double entendre. It is more about the way economists think they are superior rather than any absolute finding of superiority....
Smackdown follows.

Bill Mitchell – billy blog
The superiority of economists!
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at the Charles Darwin University, Northern Territory, Australia

6 comments:

Matt Franko said...

"Economists even breach standard mathematical rules regarding what should go on the x-axis and y-axis in graphical depictions of relationships."

Interesting!

I'll assume the dependent variable should go on the y-axis...

Matt Franko said...

yep:

"In calculus, functions relate variables to each other. Given two variables x and y, and a function y = f(x) that specifies y in terms of x, then y is known as a dependent variable (and x is an independent variable)."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dependent_and_independent_variables#Dependent_variable

Roger Erickson said...

Orthodox economists must be taught that everyone else depends on them. :(

http://mikenormaneconomics.blogspot.com/2013/09/a-currency-denominated-economy-cannot.html

Pity we no longer teach the Rhyme of the Ancient Marriner Eccles
http://mikenormaneconomics.blogspot.com/2013/08/rhyme-of-ancient-marriner-eccles-redux.html

Tom Hickey said...

And what reversing the convention regarding dependent and independent variables implies in real terms is reversing the causality. :o

NeilW said...

Of course they don't get the dependent and independent variables the wrong way around.

They really, really believe that the causality runs that way :)

Matt Franko said...

Neil/Tom yes! that is why Bill says they get the axis wrong imo... they have the causality backwards!

UFB! rsp,