Alfred Marshall
Ignoring ergodicity
Utility is a rhetorical construct, not a rational one
Rational is a
Accounting identities are not identities
The Festival of Endogenous Parameters
Freshwater vs. Saltwater Economists
The rhetorical, rather than truthfinding, purpose of economics is evidenced by the existence in the United States of what are playfully referred to as freshwater and saltwater economists. Saltwater economists are said to inhabit East Coast universities, while freshwater economists are said to inhabit the University of Chicago and other institutions near the Great Lakes. Freshwater economists tend to be politically-conservative and espouse the free market and pricing mechanisms as curative, and government distortions of market pricing as problematic. Saltwater economists tend to be politically-liberal and analyze social utility.
Behavioral Economics
Behavioral economics leverages the success of economics in influencing government policy as a channel through which psychology and sociology may more directly influence policy. For example, behavioral economists introduced ‘nudges’. A nudge
- Asserts the social benefit of compelling individuals to comply with a desired behavior
- Designs a psychological intervention designed to incentivize compliance or penalize non-compliance without triggering outright rebellion
- Empirically measures the effectiveness of the intervention using the methods of economics
Behavioral economists also attempt to overcome the falsifiability handicap of sociology and economics by comparing similar interventions across different jurisdictions. This of course violates fundamental principles of the scientific method such as control