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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
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6 comments:

  1. Matt FrankoFebruary 28, 2015 at 8:46 AM

    "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...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Matt FrankoFebruary 28, 2015 at 8:49 AM

    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

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  3. Roger EricksonFebruary 28, 2015 at 10:25 AM

    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

    ReplyDelete
  4. Tom HickeyFebruary 28, 2015 at 11:34 AM

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

    ReplyDelete
  5. NeilWFebruary 28, 2015 at 11:48 AM

    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 :)

    ReplyDelete
  6. Matt FrankoFebruary 28, 2015 at 12:17 PM

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

    UFB! rsp,

    ReplyDelete