I certainly wouldn’t suggest trying to independently compete with the conceptual framework of, say, semiconductor physics or structural engineering, but when a field is rotten enough (nutrition, psychology, education, and economics come to mind) history indicates to me that someone smart from another field is often more correct than specialists on that topic, when they have an interest in it.
Economics seems out of place here. Why do you think its rotten?
Lobbyists influence politicians, who decide policies based on politics. They then find economists who will justify the things they want to do. Those economists become high status, and other economists imitate them.
Appointment of economics faculty has been influenced by big donors with ideological agendas.
The predictions have been bad, even beyond the difficulty of predicting market movements. “Transitory inflation”, for example.
Macroeconomics is mostly about making a model and working out its implications, and selects for people good at doing the math involved, but there are no pressures towards making sure the assumptions are actually correct.
About the post linked, mostly agree, but I don’t see the need to move away from utility maximisation as a framework. We just have a piss poor description of the utility function. “I enjoy being like that rich and successful dude” is a value.
I don’t think so. How about if what people want depends on the current weather, or if people end up wanting whatever they were able to get in the past?
Seems a restrictive definition of “utility function”. It can have the weather as one of its inputs. It can have state (because really, that only means its input is not just the present but the whole past trajectory).
“Function” is an incredibly broad mathematical term.
Economics seems out of place here. Why do you think its rotten?
Lobbyists influence politicians, who decide policies based on politics. They then find economists who will justify the things they want to do. Those economists become high status, and other economists imitate them.
Appointment of economics faculty has been influenced by big donors with ideological agendas.
The predictions have been bad, even beyond the difficulty of predicting market movements. “Transitory inflation”, for example.
Macroeconomics is mostly about making a model and working out its implications, and selects for people good at doing the math involved, but there are no pressures towards making sure the assumptions are actually correct.
see this post
About the post linked, mostly agree, but I don’t see the need to move away from utility maximisation as a framework. We just have a piss poor description of the utility function. “I enjoy being like that rich and successful dude” is a value.
I don’t think so. How about if what people want depends on the current weather, or if people end up wanting whatever they were able to get in the past?
Seems a restrictive definition of “utility function”. It can have the weather as one of its inputs. It can have state (because really, that only means its input is not just the present but the whole past trajectory).
“Function” is an incredibly broad mathematical term.