Meta tags:
description= 15 posts published by Lars Syll during August 2015;
Headings (most frequently used words):
and, the, of, wrong, on, are, they, kids, significance, recent, comments, lars, syll, brad, delong, is, realism, inference, to, best, explanation, unbiased, econometric, estimates, forget, it, new, keynesian, models, not, too, simple, just, funeral, ikos, has, macroeconomics, really, progressed, top, universities, preserves, bad, economics, things, economists, could, learn, from, statistical, power, robert, solow, kicking, lucas, sargent, in, pants, our, american, dream, general, equilibrium, theory, gross, misallocation, intellectual, resources, time, ragnar, frisch, limits, statistics, testing, noah, smith, thinks, values, work, read, my, lips, don, perfect, day, private, rethinking, expectations, posts, policy, reading, list, categories, archives,
Text of the page (most frequently used words):
the (436), and (207), that (192), are (85), not (66), this (61), there (53), new (52), they (50), for (45), with (43), have (42), share (40), opens (39), window (39), but (39), what (37), can (37), has (35), model (33), aug (31), expectations (31), you (30), hypothesis (29), 2015 (28), #models (27), bluesky (26), facebook (26), theory (25), explanation (25), economics (24), one (24), significance (24), from (23), their (22), comments (21), may (21), true (21), like (20), our (20), only (19), statistical (19), best (19), all (18), rational (18), than (18), will (17), scientific (17), because (17), would (17), mar (16), apr (16), jun (16), jan (16), science (16), posted (16), how (16), way (16), about (16), believe (16), jul (15), sep (15), oct (15), nov (15), dec (15), feb (15), lönebildning (15), och (15), arbetslöshet (15), does (15), some (15), testing (15), real (15), too (14), think (14), more (14), don (14), when (14), better (14), lars (13), important (13), well (13), any (13), much (13), wrong (13), price (13), values (13), fact (13), 2012 (12), 2013 (12), 2014 (12), 2016 (12), 2017 (12), 2018 (12), 2019 (12), 2020 (12), 2021 (12), 2022 (12), 2023 (12), 2024 (12), 2025 (12), people (12), economists (12), say (12), doesn (12), most (12), false (12), just (12), equilibrium (12), why (11), those (11), such (11), many (11), world (11), even (11), out (11), which (11), could (11), might (11), reasonable (11), really (11), inference (11), general (11), 2011 (10), statistics (10), time (10), same (10), these (10), right (10), prices (10), cannot (10), work (10), market (10), null (10), them (10), keynesian (10), unbiased (10), students (9), tests (9), good (9), lucas (9), data (9), things (9), very (9), off (9), then (9), dsge (9), mouse (9), other (8), econometrics (8), education (8), being (8), sargent (8), since (8), problem (8), suppose (8), been (8), course (8), rather (8), another (8), little (8), get (8), case (8), estimate (8), still (8), find (8), nominal (8), premise (8), now (7), were (7), where (7), know (7), based (7), economies (7), economist (7), thing (7), effects (7), markets (7), your (7), its (7), test (7), standard (7), assumptions (7), read (7), researchers (7), rate (7), something (7), economic (7), reason (7), interest (7), come (7), realism (7), phenomena (7), explains (7), ibe (7), 2026 (6), theories (6), observed (6), empirical (6), had (6), after (6), modern (6), wages (6), was (6), let (6), behavior (6), macroeconomic (6), over (6), simply (6), give (6), evidence (6), missing (6), etc (6), shown (6), between (6), reasons (6), positive (6), see (6), make (6), going (6), seem (6), also (6), technique (6), forces (6), kids (6), story (6), says (6), here (6), universities (6), ranked (6), reality (6), available (6), peirce (6), premises (6), conclusion (6), policy (5), often (5), approach (5), realistic (5), knowledge (5), fundamental (5), everyone (5), economy (5), far (5), perfect (5), robert (5), understanding (5), live (5), who (5), should (5), wage (5), form (5), given (5), explanatory (5), kind (5), able (5), level (5), hypotheses (5), exactly (5), point (5), matter (5), maybe (5), post (5), under (5), solow (5), job (5), top (5), university (5), lower (5), shock (5), life (5), macroeconomists (5), estimates (5), brad (5), scheme (5), suspect (5), abduction (5), explanandum (5), explanans (5), write (4), syll (4), already (4), account (4), methodology (4), fred (4), recent (4), follow (4), respond (4), nothing (4), research (4), conclusions (4), usually (4), called (4), almost (4), indeed (4), always (4), open (4), making (4), put (4), attention (4), information (4), never (4), issues (4), cost (4), correct (4), innovators (4), supposed (4), both (4), own (4), learn (4), professors (4), sense (4), used (4), rule (4), bit (4), theoretical (4), into (4), forward (4), around (4), thought (4), last (4), high (4), macroeconomics (4), try (4), yes (4), relevant (4), hard (4), years (4), ago (4), three (4), though (4), forget (4), mean (4), independent (4), strong (4), anything (4), smith (4), using (4), working (4), zero (4), valid (4), doing (4), rates (4), non (4), distribution (4), less (4), teaching (4), however (4), sound (4), problems (4), claim (4), away (4), intellectual (4), santa (4), claus (4), equilibria (4), american (4), want (4), whole (4), take (4), without (4), representative (4), supply (4), regard (4), law (4), failure (4), meaningless (4), negative (4), property (4), monetary (4), shall (4), obviously (4), simple (4), safe (4), scratching (4), deductively (4), entities (4), comment (3), view (3), report (3), content (3), varia (3), especially (3), ones (3), stuff (3), personal (3), yields (3), differ (3), yet (3), event (3), known (3), explained (3), behaviour (3), errors (3), learning (3), long (3), assumption (3), profession (3), speculators (3), ask (3), must (3), thus (3), explain (3), predict (3), studying (3), her (3), framework (3), example (3), reported (3), higher (3), inflation (3), went (3), again (3), microfoundations (3), rescue (3), truly (3), critical (3), epistemological (3), proved (3), significant (3), validate (3), means (3), coefficients (3), unlikely (3), typical (3), issue (3), seems (3), use (3), writes (3), pure (3), error (3), result (3), bias (3), against (3), noah (3), value (3), actually (3), inferences (3), jager (3), leek (3), medical (3), assuming (3), two (3), second (3), lot (3), questions (3), social (3), made (3), getting (3), backlash (3), trying (3), ragnar (3), frisch (3), ever (3), stability (3), show (3), assume (3), gross (3), ackerman (3), conditions (3), history (3), lead (3), exist (3), down (3), ontological (3), actors (3), structure (3), labor (3), clear (3), unemployed (3), inclined (3), label (3), excess (3), sort (3), marginal (3), old (3), brother (3), person (3), possible (3), flawed (3), clearing (3), postulate (3), great (3), until (3), physicist (3), chemist (3), 1991 (3), graduate (3), preserves (3), bad (3), guide (3), key (3), falls (3), effect (3), likely (3), thou (3), hast (3), thee (3), main (3), simon (3), econometric (3), choice (3), whatever (3), object (3), quite (3), explanationist (3), van (3), fraassen (3), patter (3), feet (3), cheese (3), goes (3), major (3), invalid (3), surprising (3), merely (3), pattern (3), wall (3), infer (3), explaining (3), task (3), name (2), required (2), log (2), sign (2), subscribed (2), subscribe (2), wordpress (2), com (2), blog (2), school (2), reading (2), arbetslösheten (2), inte (2), irrelevant (2), full (2), professor (2), summer (2), paradox (2), unbiasedness (2), finding (2), next (2), idea (2), established (2), nobel (2), bob (2), facts (2), necessary (2), john (2), persistent (2), eye (2), systems (2), mistakes (2), turn (2), emphasis (2), misinformed (2), pay (2), vast (2), according (2), sciences (2), expectationists (2), wanted (2), math (2), rocket (2), modeled (2), while (2), living (2), formula (2), looks (2), incomplete (2), incorrect (2), fear (2), worse (2), stone (2), different (2), feature (2), capitalist (2), permit (2), views (2), variables (2), terms (2), scientists (2), along (2), before (2), picked (2), said (2), adaptive (2), didn (2), pretend (2), company (2), past (2), rethinking (2), four (2), decades (2), question (2), heterodox (2), yours (2), precise (2), outcomes (2), statements (2), day (2), private (2), regression (2), intercept (2), output (2), stated (2), except (2), colleagues (2), disagree (2), fitting (2), performing (2), basic (2), nor (2), trivial (2), perhaps (2), underlying (2), mathematical (2), statistician (2), applied (2), tendency (2), disconfirmed (2), tells (2), probability (2), conclude (2), perform (2), looking (2), search (2), disconfirm (2), chance (2), agree (2), noted (2), once (2), andrew (2), gelman (2), literature (2), basically (2), hacking (2), published (2), conditional (2), distributions (2), large (2), claims (2), mixture (2), statistically (2), typically (2), fit (2), above (2), lots (2), essentially (2), larger (2), appropriate (2), identification (2), done (2), fall (2), anyway (2), contrary (2), samples (2), having (2), continue (2), press (2), part (2), misinterpret (2), smell (2), convincing (2), upset (2), wide (2), traditional (2), present (2), refined (2), network (2), checks (2), considerations (2), limits (2), rests (2), political (2), extent (2), misallocation (2), resources (2), anyone (2), frank (2), unique (2), efficient (2), contemporary (2), foundation (2), latest (2), unsound (2), uninteresting (2), owes (2), dream (2), napoleon (2), technical (2), tacitly (2), drawn (2), game (2), weakness (2), ludicrous (2), taking (2), seriously (2), religious (2), insistence (2), enterprise (2), equipped (2), knowing (2), somehow (2), taken (2), produced (2), worker (2), glad (2), months (2), happen (2), misinformation (2), employed (2), his (2), chrysler (2), corporation (2), automobiles (2), exceeds (2), offer (2), serious (2), happened (2), 1970s (2), grand (2), scale (2), business (2), cycle (2), optimizing (2), self (2), evident (2), weak (2), consistency (2), events (2), extremely (2), power (2), soup (2), opener (2), build (2), sit (2), desert (2), island (2), play (2), hungry (2), become (2), today (2), commission (2), association (2), consider (2), back (2), quality (2), comes (2), taught (2), cambridge (2), galí (2), gertler (2), 2007 (2), fed (2), increase (2), words (2), shocks (2), expansionary (2), contractionary (2), initially (2), consumption (2), wealth (2), authority (2), raise (2), thinking (2), mercy (2), man (2), deliver (2), funeral (2), ikos (2), relevance (2), macro (2), gadget (2), regularities (2), tried (2), need (2), alternative (2), modeling (2), inflexibilities (2), brand (2), mainstream (2), methodological (2), beliefs (2), fatally (2), critique (2), trust (2), following (2), biased (2), gets (2), practitioners (2), although (2), arguments (2), probable (2), disappearing (2), believed (2), saying (2), latter (2), former (2), controversial (2), instances (2), competing (2), therefore (2), similar (2), suggest (2), epistemic (2), modifier (2), tentatively (2), abductive (2), hence (2), 1931 (2), vol (2), 189 (2), obvious (2), original (2), argument (2), truth (2), beyond (2), deduce (2), realists (2), deal (2), epicycles (2), daniel (2), properties (2), physical (2), delong (2), website, email, loading, collapse, bar, manage, subscriptions, site, reader, privacy, join, 606, subscribers, feeds, entries, 112, archives, 707, 542, 998, 390, politics, society, 301, 168, categories, list, fredtorssander, wiklund, netiquette, anonymous, pseudo, argumentations, abusive, language, links, please, remember, leaves, limited, democracy, outperforms, dictatorship, reification, randomisation, guarantee, nancy, cartwright, contributions, philosophy, sverige, randomness, representativeness, credible, credibility, revolution, statsskulden, problemet, ett, välförtjänt, bottenrekord, audioholic, stein, lesson, precision, love, secret, late, student, efter, studenten, arbetslöshetsiffran, som, styr, den, ekonomiska, politiken, posts, page, seminal, influences, agenda, phd, advance, derived, establishes, divergent, supported, observation, prof, disarmingly, rejecting, programme, fellow, laureates, prescott, validity, demonstrated, torturing, hoc, adjustments, imperfections, reconciled, calibrated, everything, universal, admissible, leave, sums, pretty, kay, presumes, consistent, display, average, hitting, bull, possibility, danger, systematic, presumably, societies, bloomberg, wouldn, fallacy, knows, process, receive, certified, national, academy, operate, grossly, uninformed, cry, acquiring, including, federal, reserve, makers, appears, hijacked, bottle, replace, deterministic, looked, extreme, altogether, inside, led, uncertainty, lack, variability, speculation, idiosyncratic, conceive, products, methods, whether, adopted, innovations, roll, ring, local, ringing, aspiring, short, causal, drivers, trumped, causes, craziness, consequence, putsch, chicago, mit, came, thumb, air, mind, setters, every, expert, seeking, forms, basis, did, morph, 1968, complete, firms, employees, formed, elsewhere, turned, plausible, convenient, competitors, expect, adapt, observations, throw, month, answer, volume, roman, frydman, majority, derailed, differs, became, widely, accepted, listen, laureate, edmund, phelps, hardly, added, attempted, operations, picture, dipped, tiny, verifies, bother, protagonists, überpriest, thomas, defended, status, arguing, focuses, behavioral, powerful, tool, newly, wedded, couple, celebrating, garden, residence, fourteen, feels, yesterday, mistake, takes, big, statistic, logically, possibilities, table, occurred, iii, journal, articles, equation, several, include, degrees, freedom, numerator, denominator, vanish, validation, central, found, computing, informative, linearity, independence, validated, position, indefensible, consequences, reconsider, importantly, parameters, eminent, david, freedman, constructions, probably, confirmed, sampling, difference, disconfirmation, guess, count, severe, confirm, problematic, accept, rejected, royal, road, dread, fatiguing, climb, steep, paths, gaining, luminous, summits, underlines, equate, calculation, entail, human, judgement, relieve, necessity, misspecified, concomitant, substitutes, german, philosopher, famously, wrote, empirically, positives, trends, questioned, textbook, commonly, study, genetics, imaging, fields, applying, first, sharp, division, selection, suggested, neyman, pearson, word, title, authors, look, number, papers, replicated, studies, collecting, set, uniform, beta, restricted, assumes, uri, simonsohn, isn, noise, undetectable, studied, broadly, asking, biggest, theta, variety, fetish, blame, ignorance, particularly, transparent, difficult, teach, practice, pray, population, parameter, random, distributional, shape, relies, weird, backward, logic, understand, noticed, repeatedly, careful, explicating, probabilities, generated, apply, hmm, suddenly, reached, frenzy, psych, journals, starting, ban, pass, certain, smart, carefully, cause, inherent, uselessness, defend, increasing, attacks, launched, thinks, lips, developed, paper, wise, solve, confronted, ultimate, consist, cross, intimate, concur, guaranteed, optimality, laissez, faire, policies, died, exogenous, surely, debate, desirable, intervention, order, fromits, instability, continuing, agents, behaving, uncertain, system, converges, avail, anymore, ought, grow, leaving, dustbin, nil, demonstrate, operating, least, mildly, moving, sustainable, article, franklin, fisher, oneself, restrictive, pareto, century, half, léon, walras, founded, normative, adam, invisible, hand, merits, pervades, introductory, textbooks, classroom, discourse, excursions, favourite, doubt, books, year, someone, sits, sitting, announces, bonaparte, him, involved, discussion, cavalry, tactics, battle, austerlitz, tom, discussions, gone, attracted, treating, laughing, trap, passing, matters, totally, unbelievably, ridiculous, quasi, presenting, neither, justifications, blind, depict, complex, embracing, actor, superhuman, forecasting, abilities, swallowed, sour, grapes, sonnenschein, mantel, debreu, theorem, resurrect, omniscient, walrasian, auctioneer, assumed, purported, strength, classical, firm, anchorage, preference, microeconomics, decisions, inter, temporal, utility, maximizing, loooking, individuals, eminently, quotable, unnecessary, beating, bush, plain, nose, face, goods, meaningful, unemployment, survey, six, paid, myself, lucky, enough, elaborate, implausibility, direct, presume, everybody, curve, employment, similarly, motor, happy, sell, 1000, week, buyers, telling, revenue, erode, crumble, circumstances, told, holding, employer, encourage, reduction, either, cut, adult, spend, lifetime, notion, strikes, utterly, implausible, response, describe, polemical, vocabulary, reminiscent, spiro, agnew, quote, phrases, culled, thepaper, wildly, fundamentally, wreckage, fatal, dire, implications, spectac, ular, hope, proposal, constructive, talk, sympathetically, call, firmly, terribly, postulates, perpetual, closely, optimistic, optimizes, implies, useful, optimize, constraints, perceive, casual, special, mcnees, documented, radical, break, 1960s, responses, kicking, pants, kristoffer, magnusson, methodologists, constantly, exercise, worst, impediment, discoveries, consequently, correctly, interpret, meant, aid, visualization, squabble, guys, lose, famished, professionals, brains, drop, tree, breaks, fire, flames, bursts, stranded, imagine, date, awry, land, washes, ashore, progresso, reduced, sodium, chicken, noodle, salt, eat, red, meat, touch, steve, keen, forbes, graduates, lecturers, thanks, trend, identified, trickled, undergraduate, leading, programs, turning, generation, idiots, savants, skilled, innocent, flogging, wares, appeared, headed, usa, field, ways, depends, individual, rankings, gifted, teachers, multitude, preferences, sheer, lock, capable, start, institution, boys, locks, certainly, institutions, buildings, starters, walk, architecture, feel, drenched, amazing, experience, ray, fair, push, explosive, unless, raises, held, constant, oil, lag, addition, household, asset, rise, through, offset, households, appear, keeps, unchanged, deciding, otherwise, misleading, guiding, progressed, music, tavener, arvo, pärt, unimaginable, unto, orphan, compassion, naked, clothed, shelter, sing, psalm, alleluia, rigor, competes, lines, development, theorists, micro, brilliantly, silly, help, confirms, dictum, gordon, ilk, microfoundational, expected, obey, warrants, supposing, causally, mechanisms, bridged, justifiable, incompatibility, actual, building, symptom, irrationality, shows, futility, represent, target, flagrantly, odds, dynamic, stochastic, itself, intellectually, bankrupt, revert, preceded, adopt, compete, keynes, responsibilities, subject, somewhat, loose, cluster, keynesians, adhere, technology, rbc, emphasise, contract, sources, shortterm, adjustment, refers, rigid, stress, fortunately, got, tired, apologetics, modellers, axel, leijonhufvud, plays, minor, role, neoclassical, largely, function, substitute, hoped, humbled, manifest, pretences, during, financial, crisis, sided, axiomatic, deductivist, activity, worthy, pursuing, pluralism, formalistic, tractability, construct, nowadays, roger, farmer, period, frictions, calvo, fairy, nope, academic, trained, 1980s, address, techniques, internal, alter, few, equations, structural, internally, inconsistent, fits, wren, lewis, nice, discussing, paul, romer, harbor, risks, recognition, frees, gresham, remains, hey, conservative, succeed, fancier, plan, won, run, robustness, stop, combine, unofficial, proof, correctness, econ, require, demonstrating, holds, specifications, decision, flashy, bayesian, risky, stepping, base, boring, impression, estimation, kinda, settings, nonrandom, measurement, nonadditivity, nonlinearity, econometricians, privileging, bunch, echoing, challenge, topic, comfort, absolute, linear, commenters, discussed, tradeoff, variance, overfit, appreciate, effort, reflection, unfortunately, interesting, provoking, warrant, stance, prove, principle, falsehood, responsible, longer, unreasonable, necessarily, absurd, reasonably, truths, establish, circular, tested, refuted, return, concerns, philosophers, promises, mentioned, focus, objection, common, affairs, detective, stories, rescued, stronger, equivalently, results, spelled, repair, weakens, considerably, particular, adding, trade, invalidity, equally, unsoundness, provided, clue, considered, william, lycan, 1985, 138, attempts, improve, upon, requiring, fancy, notice, figures, generate, seeks, justify, ancestor, ubiquitous, everyday, homely, hear, midnight, disappears, apparent, signs, mousely, presence, observable, 1980, suggests, generally, suggestion, odd, explanations, various, impossible, extract, moreover, guarantees, deductive, saving, invoke, wonderful, essay, chapter, 2010, eds, deborah, mayo, aris, spanos, alan, musgrave, gives, alternatives, structures, durable, exists, concepts, positivism, realist, argue, detect, conceived, identifying, produce, relativism, expanding, keep, reducing, discursive, maintain, enlightenment, tradition, principally, contribution, researcher, reveal, sounds, ptolemy, planetary, motion, albeit, relativity, nobody, believes, wtf, reaction, unobservable, individually, testable, directly, observe, measure, hypothetical, wholes, predictive, descriptive, range, success, consists, approximately, hypothesized, physics, realm, gretl, downloadable, publications, lps,
Text of the page (random words):
em the physicist says we could drop it from the top of that tree over there until it breaks open and the chemist says we could build a fire and sit the can in the flames until it bursts open those two squabble a bit until the economist says no no no come on guys you d lose most of the soup let s just assume a can opener share on facebook opens in new window facebook share on x opens in new window x share on bluesky opens in new window bluesky statistical power and significance 18 aug 2015 at 09 41 posted in statistics econometrics 1 comment much has been said about significance testing most of it negative methodologists constantly point out that researchers misinterpret p values some say that it is at best a meaningless exercise and at worst an impediment to scientific discoveries consequently i believe it is extremely important that students and researchers correctly interpret statistical tests this visualization is meant as an aid for students when they are learning about statistical hypothesis testing kristoffer magnusson great stuff share on facebook opens in new window facebook share on x opens in new window x share on bluesky opens in new window bluesky robert solow kicking lucas and sargent in the pants 16 aug 2015 at 20 34 posted in economics 6 comments mcnees documented the radical break between the 1960s and 1970s the question is what are the possible responses that economists and economics can make to those events one possible response is that of professors lucas and sargent they describe what happened in the 1970s in a very strong way with a polemical vocabulary reminiscent of spiro agnew let me quote some phrases that i culled from thepaper wildly incorrect fundamentally flawed wreckage failure fatal of no value dire implications failure on a grand scale spectac ular recent failure no hope i think that professors lucas and sargent really seem to be serious in what they say and in turn they have a proposal for constructive research that i find hard to talk about sympathetically they call it equilibrium business cycle theory and they say very firmly that it is based on two terribly important postulates optimizing behavior and perpetual market clearing when you read closely they seem to regard the postulate of optimizing behavior as self evident and the postulate of market clearing behavior as essentially meaningless i think they are too optimistic since the one that they think is self evident i regard as meaningless and the one that they think is meaningless i regard as false the assumption that everyone optimizes implies only weak and uninteresting consistency conditions on their behavior anything useful has to come from knowing what they optimize and what constraints they perceive lucas and sargent s casual assumptions have no special claim to attention it is plain as the nose on my face that the labor market and many markets for produced goods do not clear in any meaningful sense professors lucas and sargent say after all there is no evidence that labor markets do not clear just the unemployment survey that seems to me to be evidence suppose an unemployed worker says to you yes i would be glad to take a job like the one i have already proved i can do because i had it six months ago or three or four months ago and i will be glad to work at exactly the same wage that is being paid to those exactly like myself who used to be working at that job and happen to be lucky enough still to be working at it then i m inclined to label that a case of excess supply of labor and i m not inclined to make up an elaborate story of search or misinformation or anything of the sort by the way i find the misinformation story another gross implausibility i would like to see direct evidence that the unemployed are more misinformed than the employed as i presume would have to be the case if everybody is on his or her supply curve of employment similarly if the chrysler motor corporation tells me that it would be happy to make and sell 1000 more automobiles this week at the going price if only it could find buyers for them i am inclined to believe they are telling me that price exceeds marginal cost or even that marginal revenue exceeds marginal cost and regard that as a case of excess supply of automobiles now you could ask why do not prices and wages erode and crumble under those circumstances why doesn t the unemployed worker who told me yes i would like to work at the going wage at the old job that my brother in law or my brother in law s brother in law is still holding why doesn t that person offer to work at that job for less indeed why doesn t the employer try to encourage wage reduction that doesn t happen either why does the chrysler corporation not cut the price those are questions that i think an adult person might spend a lifetime studying they are important and serious questions but the notion that the excess supply is not there strikes me as utterly implausible robert solow no unnecessary beating around the bush here the always eminently quotable solow says it all the purported strength of new classical macroeconomics is that it has firm anchorage in preference based microeconomics and especially the decisions taken by inter temporal utility maximizing forward loooking individuals to some of us however this has come at too high a price the almost quasi religious insistence that macroeconomics has to have microfoundations without ever presenting neither ontological nor epistemological justifications for this claim has put a blind eye to the weakness of the whole enterprise of trying to depict a complex economy based on an all embracing representative actor equipped with superhuman knowledge forecasting abilities and forward looking rational expectations it is as if after having swallowed the sour grapes of the sonnenschein mantel debreu theorem these economists want to resurrect the omniscient walrasian auctioneer in the form of all knowing representative actors equipped with rational expectations and assumed to somehow know the true structure of our model of the world that anyone should take that kind of stuff seriously is totally and unbelievably ridiculous or as solow has it suppose someone sits down where you are sitting right now and announces to me that he is napoleon bonaparte the last thing i want to do with him is to get involved in a technical discussion of cavalry tactics at the battle of austerlitz if i do that i m getting tacitly drawn into the game that he is napoleon now bob lucas and tom sargent like nothing better than to get drawn into technical discussions because then you have tacitly gone along with their fundamental assumptions your attention is attracted away from the basic weakness of the whole story since i find that fundamental framework ludicrous i respond by treating it as ludicrous that is by laughing at it so as not to fall into the trap of taking it seriously and passing on to matters of technique robert solow share on facebook opens in new window facebook share on x opens in new window x share on bluesky opens in new window bluesky our kids and the american dream 15 aug 2015 at 17 37 posted in education school comments off on our kids and the american dream no doubt one of the most important books you will read this year share on facebook opens in new window facebook share on x opens in new window x share on bluesky opens in new window bluesky general equilibrium theory a gross misallocation of intellectual resources and time 15 aug 2015 at 10 30 posted in economics 2 comments general equilibrium is fundamental to economics on a more normative level as well a story about adam smith the invisible hand and the merits of markets pervades introductory textbooks classroom teaching and contemporary political discourse the intellectual foundation of this story rests on general equilibrium not on the latest mathematical excursions if the foundation of everyone s favourite economics story is now known to be unsound and according to some uninteresting as well then the profession owes the world a bit of an explanation frank ackerman almost a century and a half after léon walras founded general equilibrium theory economists still have not been able to show that markets lead economies to equilibria we do know that under very restrictive assumptions equilibria do exist are unique and are pareto efficient but after reading frank ackerman s article or franklin m fisher s the stability of general equilibrium what do we know and why is it important one has to ask oneself what good does that do as long as we cannot show that there are convincing reasons to suppose there are forces which lead economies to equilibria the value of general equilibrium theory is nil as long as we cannot really demonstrate that there are forces operating under reasonable relevant and at least mildly realistic conditions at moving markets to equilibria there cannot really be any sustainable reason for anyone to pay any interest or attention to this theory a stability that can only be proved by assuming santa claus conditions is of no avail most people do not believe in santa claus anymore and for good reasons santa claus is for kids and general equilibrium economists ought to grow up leaving their santa claus economics in the dustbin of history continuing to model a world full of agents behaving as economists often wrong but never uncertain and still not being able to show that the system under reasonable assumptions converges to equilibrium or simply assume the problem away is a gross misallocation of intellectual resources and time as ackerman writes the guaranteed optimality of market outcomes and laissez faire policies died with general equilibrium if economic stability rests on exogenous social and political forces then it is surely appropriate to debate the desirable extent of intervention in the market in part in order to rescue the market fromits own instability share on facebook opens in new window facebook share on x opens in new window x share on bluesky opens in new window bluesky ragnar frisch on the limits of statistics and significance testing 13 aug 2015 at 12 00 posted in statistics econometrics comments off on ragnar frisch on the limits of statistics and significance testing i do not claim that the technique developed in the present paper will like a stone of the wise solve all the problems of testing significance with which the economic statistician is confronted no statistical technique however refined will ever be able to do such a thing the ultimate test of significance must consist in a network of conclusions and cross checks where theoretical economic considerations intimate and realistic knowledge of the data and a refined statistical technique concur ragnar frisch share on facebook opens in new window facebook share on x opens in new window x share on bluesky opens in new window bluesky noah smith thinks p values work read my lips they don t 12 aug 2015 at 16 24 posted in statistics econometrics 5 comments noah smith has a post up trying to defend p values and traditional statistical significance testing against the increasing attacks launched against it suddenly everyone is getting really upset about p values and statistical significance testing the backlash has reached such a frenzy that some psych journals are starting to ban significance testing though there are some well known problems with p values and significance testing this backlash doesn t pass the smell test when a technique has been in wide use for decades it s certain that lots of smart scientists have had a chance to think carefully about it the fact that we re only now getting the backlash means that the cause is something other than the inherent uselessness of the methodology hmm that doesn t sound very convincing maybe we should apply yet another smell test a non trivial part of teaching statistics is made up of learning students to perform significance testing a problem i have noticed repeatedly over the years however is that no matter how careful you try to be in explicating what the probabilities generated by these statistical tests p values really are still most students misinterpret them this is not to blame on students ignorance but rather on significance testing not being particularly transparent conditional probability inference is difficult even to those of us who teach and practice it a lot of researchers fall pray to the same mistakes so given that it anyway is very unlikely than any population parameter is exactly zero and that contrary to assumption most samples in social science and economics are not random or having the right distributional shape why continue to press students and researchers to do null hypothesis significance testing testing that relies on weird backward logic that students and researchers usually don t understand statistical significance doesn t say that something is important or true and since there already are far better and more relevant testing that can be done it is high time to give up on this statistical fetish jager and leek may well be correct in their larger point that the medical literature is broadly correct but i don t think the statistical framework they are using is appropriate for the questions they are asking my biggest problem is the identification of scientific hypotheses and statistical hypotheses of the theta 0 variety based on the word empirical title i thought the authors were going to look at a large number of papers with p values and then follow up and see if the claims were replicated but no they don t follow up on the studies at all what they seem to be doing is collecting a set of published p values and then fitting a mixture model to this distribution a mixture of a uniform distribution for null effects and a beta distribution for non null effects since only statistically significant p values are typically reported they fit their model restricted to p values less than 0 05 but this all assumes that the p values have this stated distribution you don t have to be uri simonsohn to know that there s a lot of p hacking going on also as noted above the problem isn t really effects that are exactly zero the problem is that a lot of effects are lots in the noise and are essentially undetectable given the way they are studied jager and leek write that their model is commonly used to study hypotheses in genetics and imaging i could see how this model could make sense in those fields but i don t see this model applying to published medical research for two reasons first i don t think there would be a sharp division between null and non null effects and second there s just too much selection going on for me to believe that the conditional distributions of the p values would be anything like the theoretical distributions suggested by neyman pearson theory so no i don t at all believe jager and leek when they write we are able to empirically estimate the rate of false positives ...
|
