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Assorted links
2. New economics blog, 10cc
3. A British poll of artists' favorite painters
5. Why most people don't get economics
6. What economists agree upon, summarized by Greg Mankiw
Posted by Tyler Cowen on November 30, 2006 at 01:52 PM in Web/Tech | Permalink
Comments
I found "5. Why most people don't get economics" very interesting. Is this well-received by economists?
(btw, s/cc/cm)
Posted by: odograph at Nov 30, 2006 2:03:41 PM
Tyler, you’re fingers betray your feelings. Now the world knows of your passion for the pop band responsible for the hit “I’m not in love”.
Posted by: Whit Stevens at Nov 30, 2006 2:28:38 PM
A comment on the last sentence of "Why most people don't get economics".
"In other words, to have an intuitive grasp of economics, you might just need to take a step or two up the evolutionary ladder."
Does this mean economists are higher level beings or are the rest of us just sub-human?
Posted by: Qwerty at Nov 30, 2006 2:34:18 PM
#2 is 10cm. 10cc was a 1970s British band best remembered for the rather embarrassing behaviour of one of their fans at the Knebworth festival.
Posted by: Nick at Nov 30, 2006 2:51:20 PM
Contrary to what the dog article says, I believe that the size differential between the very largest and very smallest horses is similar to that between Great Danes and Chihuahuas.
Posted by: Tony at Nov 30, 2006 3:55:28 PM
OK, what happened at the Knebworth festival? I haven't been able to find it on wikipedia or google.
Posted by: DK at Nov 30, 2006 4:42:59 PM
#5 Doesn't Arnold Kling have an entire chapter about that, covering the same exact relationships, in his book, Learning Economics?
Posted by: Mike at Nov 30, 2006 4:51:55 PM
DK,
this link is probably what Nick had in mind:
http://www.saga.co.uk/magazine/people/celebrities/KeithRichardstheOriginalBadBoyOfRock.asp
"The Stones’ guitarist [Keith Richards] , ... had been declared incapable of performance and carted up to the stately home for a snooze.
In order to buy a little time, the Stones’ road crew had thoughtfully sawed through the cables that connected the public address system and it had taken more than an hour for 10cc’s mob to splice them back together again.
A cunning plan that allowed Richards to sober up and put the blame squarely on someone else. To this day, I can hear the jeers that greeted 10cc. "
Posted by: tylerh at Nov 30, 2006 4:55:50 PM
Herr Cowen,
The Alan Fiske study: Best damn thing I've read today.
Posted by: Chairman Mao at Nov 30, 2006 4:56:47 PM
The article about Fiske was interesting. On example that occurs to me is the case of friends going into a buisness arrangement. In my observation it has often seemed that one party views the deal as "equality matching," while another takes a "market pricing" stance. There is a difference as to whether the friendship aspect or the business aspect controls.
Never thought of it in Fiske's terms, but they make some sense.
Posted by: Bernard Yomtov at Nov 30, 2006 7:50:17 PM
"artists' favorite painters" - but they forgot Thomas Kinkade, painter of light!
Posted by: Constant at Nov 30, 2006 8:24:10 PM
Fiske is on the 'ball' about as much as HITLER was. What a find... if you indoctrinate people at a young age they (amazingly) will tend to apply that understanding to situations latter in life. So, remind me, what was the idea behind the Hitler Youth Movement again? Or the Islamic fundementalist 'primary schools'? Fiske has spent a lifetime studying this eh?
I am willing to concede that 'Economic' understanding is different though... instead of crude metaphors that objectify humans as 'vermin' or 'infadels' this 'humanitarian discipline' suggests that it is more useful to conceive of certain parts (most often those that have already been marginalised through violence) of the population as 'workhorses.'
Posted by: Rob at Dec 1, 2006 5:42:35 AM
From the Fiske article:
"To call this a far-reaching theory is probably a gross understatement. The more I think about it, the more it seems to fit and explain."
...which should tell you that the theory is poor. But what could you expect from an anthropologist?
Posted by: TerminalFrost at Dec 1, 2006 6:04:43 AM
Thanks for some great links as ususal!
Posted by: David Carlson at Dec 1, 2006 7:10:42 AM
Steven Pinker has nice discussion of Fiske's theory in 'The Blank Slate' -- it starts on page 233, and you can read it by using the Amazon 'search inside this book' feature and searching for 'Fiske'. Pinker's emphasis is a bit different. In his retelling, the real problem seems to be the conflict between 'equity matching' and 'market pricing'. According to Pinker, equity matching is implicated in the 'physical fallacy'--the supposedly intuitive idea that goods have a fixed, unchanging value and, therefore, a 'fair price' beyond which it is unethical to charge. Pinker argues that 'market pricing' (the idea that goods have no fixed value other than what is determined by supply and demand) is a new phenomenon that cannot have been ingrained into human psychology during evolutionary times, and so we struggle with it.
It's a neat argument, but I'm skeptical, and here's why. Hunter-gatherers, in fact, encountered value varying with supply and demand quite often. For example, in times when game is plentiful, the value of meat is lower and the hunter can not expect so much in trade. But when game is scarce, the value of meat is very high. That's market pricing in action, and everybody grasps it intuitively. The problem, I think, comes in expectations about what the hunter should do with his meat when game is scarce. Is it ethical for him to drive the hardest possible bargain? It seems that nearly all societies agree that the answer is no (and perhaps this is wired into our psychology as well) -- people seem to instinctively hate 'profiteers'. Not because they don't recognize that the value of goods varies with scarcity--but in spite of the fact that they do. It makes things rather complicated.
Posted by: Slocum at Dec 1, 2006 8:19:15 AM
Hayek talked about this a bit in The Fatal Conceit:
"[In] the extended order, old instinctual responses like solidarity and altruism continue to retain some importance by assisting voluntary collaboration, even though they are incapable, by themselves, of creating a basis for the more extended order. If we were to apply the unmodified rules of the microcosm (say, our families) to the macro-cosmos (our wider civilization), as we sentimentally often wish to do, we would destroy it. Yet if we were to always to apply the rules of the extended order to our most intimate groupings, we would crush them."
Posted by: Sam at Dec 3, 2006 10:14:46 AM
(by this, I meant point 5)
Posted by: Sam at Dec 3, 2006 10:15:19 AM
You might also enjoy "What We Learn When We Learn Economics: Is a little economics a dangerous thing?"
http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/2897/
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