Saturday I said: I see two rather different ways to think about what economists do when we recommend policies: Morals – We enter into a larger conversation about what actions are right. … While for our ancestors such discussion was often a prelude to concrete group action, today we more often argue about morals without such ways to coordinate in mind. …
Very interesting blog! I think a great way to be a quality leader is to recognize diversity and use it to the company's advantage.I am an Orthodox Jew. I got all accounts that have Orthodox Jews as point of contact and it was a great decision - we have so much in common and customer service is definitely on a higher level.Lean Manufacturing Certification.
Policy is generally directed to achieve particular objectives, like targets for inflation, unemployment, or economic growth. Sometimes other objectives, like military spending or nationalization are important.
As long as this post starts with a critique of you, I thought I'd jump in and offer a piece of what I hope is constructive criticism.
From my very informal observation of your posts over the last several months I believe I've seen a common theme. When considering the larger economic picture and how to improve it, you tend to ignore that the macro version is an accumulation of the micro. You explain why we as a nation or world would want to go a certain direction, but what's missing is an incentive for people to head down that path. If I understand the terminology right, I would put it this way: practical solutions will have "near" incentives that support "far" goals, so there is an alignment between near and far.
fburnaby, this is actually what my econ textbook said. That economics is positive science, and as soon as people make normative statements they stop speaking as scientists and start being policy advisers.
Now do I trust Robin or my textbook? Tough question!
Robin, your last few posts have raised an old issue that continually confuses me. I'm perplexed about economists wanting to say that what they're doing is *normative*. This immediately sets off my "is not science" detector, since science is usually conceived as being a completely descriptive discipline. This seems like a good norm for science, since I frequently find advocacy groups tending toward using arguments as soldiers as opposed to "truth-seeking".
Past work I've done has been in biomedecine, ecology and missile defense -- all areas where many normative claims are grounded (health promotion, environmentalists, hawks and politicos). But there's always claimed to be a divide between the (descriptive) research in these areas, and their later (normative) applications. Why is econ different?
Very interesting blog! I think a great way to be a quality leader is to recognize diversity and use it to the company's advantage.I am an Orthodox Jew. I got all accounts that have Orthodox Jews as point of contact and it was a great decision - we have so much in common and customer service is definitely on a higher level.Lean Manufacturing Certification.
Policy is generally directed to achieve particular objectives, like targets for inflation, unemployment, or economic growth. Sometimes other objectives, like military spending or nationalization are important.
Interesting. My textbook made both claims in the introduction - econ is normative; econ is a science.
Robin -
As long as this post starts with a critique of you, I thought I'd jump in and offer a piece of what I hope is constructive criticism.
From my very informal observation of your posts over the last several months I believe I've seen a common theme. When considering the larger economic picture and how to improve it, you tend to ignore that the macro version is an accumulation of the micro. You explain why we as a nation or world would want to go a certain direction, but what's missing is an incentive for people to head down that path. If I understand the terminology right, I would put it this way: practical solutions will have "near" incentives that support "far" goals, so there is an alignment between near and far.
Am I wrong?
fburnaby, this is actually what my econ textbook said. That economics is positive science, and as soon as people make normative statements they stop speaking as scientists and start being policy advisers.
Now do I trust Robin or my textbook? Tough question!
Robin, your last few posts have raised an old issue that continually confuses me. I'm perplexed about economists wanting to say that what they're doing is *normative*. This immediately sets off my "is not science" detector, since science is usually conceived as being a completely descriptive discipline. This seems like a good norm for science, since I frequently find advocacy groups tending toward using arguments as soldiers as opposed to "truth-seeking".
Past work I've done has been in biomedecine, ecology and missile defense -- all areas where many normative claims are grounded (health promotion, environmentalists, hawks and politicos). But there's always claimed to be a divide between the (descriptive) research in these areas, and their later (normative) applications. Why is econ different?