Over the years, some of us have tried to teach our economics doctoral students a bit about the importance of questioning the common ergodicity assumption. This assumption, often left unstated, underpins most mainstream economic models concerning preferences and expected utility. One of the problems has been the lack of an accessible textbook on ergodicity economics. […]
economics
. The Pólya urn — a deceptively elementary probabilistic construct — offers profound insights into the structural dynamics of many economic processes. The mechanism is straightforward. Following Scott Page’s example, we start with an urn containing one red and one blue ball. Each time a ball is drawn, it is returned to the urn along […]
. We will do decision theory by using mathematical models … The wealth process and the decision criterion may or may not remind you of the real world. We will not worry too much about the accuracy of these reminiscences. Instead we will ‘shut up and calculate’ — we will let the mathematical model create […]
. As the author of several books on the history of economic thought, yours truly cannot help but applaud Murphy’s plea for the importance of studying this field. In many works of doctrinal history, there is a tendency to read history backwards, focusing only on those theories and thinkers who appear to anticipate today’s established […]
Oppositionen har riktat hård kritik mot regeringens budget, mycket av den befogad. Att två tredjedelar av reformutrymmet på 80 miljarder går till skattesänkningar i stället för välfärd, klimat, infrastruktur eller arbetsmarknad går verkligen att ifrågasätta. Bara två procent av svenska folket tycker att det är en lämplig användning av pengarna … Det finns all anledning […]
by C.R.Yadu and Sahil Mehra* Within the discourse of Development Economics, the most widely accepted theory is that of ‘structural transformation’ (ST), which posits that, over time, non-agricultural, high productivity, and capitalist sectors will gain greater significance in terms of both national income and employment, while the role of agricultural, low productivity, and non capitalist […]
Jamie Morgan: To a member of the public it must seem weird that it is possible to state, as you do, such fundamental criticism of an entire field of study. The perplexing issue from a third party point of view is how do we reconcile good intention (or at least legitimate sense of self as […]
The stability problem in Sraffian economics is the question: will an excess rate of profit in an industry automatically result in a self-correcting adjustment, driving the excess rate of profit in that industry down to the uniform rate in the economy? No, not necessarily, argues Ian Steedman (1984), a writer deeply sympathetic to the Sraffian […]
The purported strength of New Classical macroeconomics lies in its firm anchorage in preference-based microeconomics, particularly the decisions made by inter-temporal utility-maximising, ‘forward-looking’ individuals. To some, however, this strength has come at too high a price. The quasi-religious insistence that macroeconomics must have microfoundations — without providing ontological or epistemological justification for this requirement — […]
First economic: The US dollar is down 5% over the last six months against a basket of currencies. And over the past year, it’s lost 9.6%. The biggest winner against a dollar has been the euro which has gone up 13% however, which truly is a win for Europe because it makes their natural gas […]