tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6837159629100463303.post1557081706280687659..comments2023-06-18T01:25:08.748-07:00Comments on Information Transfer Economics: Prescott and Lucas aren't Romer's problemJason Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12680061127040420047noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6837159629100463303.post-74608627311488534212015-05-20T12:46:51.350-07:002015-05-20T12:46:51.350-07:00Hi Neil,
I'm staying optimistic that things c...Hi Neil,<br /><br />I'm staying optimistic that things can get better! It's true that a lot of economics was developed because it gave comfort to the comfortable ... maybe we can make this story the new narrative. John Quiggin is doing some good work:<br /><br /><a href="http://crookedtimber.org/2015/05/19/the-most-misleading-definition-in-economics-draft-excerpt-from-economics-in-two-lessons/" rel="nofollow">http://crookedtimber.org/2015/05/19/the-most-misleading-definition-in-economics-draft-excerpt-from-economics-in-two-lessons/</a>Jason Smithhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12680061127040420047noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6837159629100463303.post-7967124316569189722015-05-20T10:38:54.715-07:002015-05-20T10:38:54.715-07:00Thanks, Todd.
It was always known that matching d...Thanks, Todd.<br /><br />It was always known that matching data with experiment was going to be basically impossible. The string scale is the Planck scale and is 10^19 GeV, requiring an accelerator ~ 10^16 times as powerful as CERN.<br /><br />However, I think one major success of string theory (it is a theoretical success) is calculating black hole entropy:<br /><br /><a href="http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/9601029" rel="nofollow">http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-th/9601029</a><br /><br />There still is the string theory landscape (that multiplicity of solutions), but maybe maximum entropy is a guide there ...<br /><br /><a href="http://arxiv.org/abs/1203.0307" rel="nofollow">http://arxiv.org/abs/1203.0307</a>Jason Smithhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12680061127040420047noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6837159629100463303.post-35848207378640587052015-05-20T10:27:04.361-07:002015-05-20T10:27:04.361-07:00Hi John,
The clearest way to say it is that Romer...Hi John,<br /><br />The clearest way to say it is that Romer thinks:<br /><br />Solow > Prescott<br /><br />Whereas I think<br /><br />Solow ≈ Prescott<br /><br />So Romer thinks the quote I show is less problematic than the Solow quote.<br /><br />Romer's reason for calling out the idea that production locations are proportional to population is that in perfect competition (as opposed to the monopolistic competition Romer favors) there are an infinite number of firms. It is true that it is nonsensical to say that production locations are proportional to an infinite quantity. But that sloppy language is easily fixed by shifting to densities -- production location density is proportional to population density, or by saying perfect competition isn't among an infinite number of firms (which is nonsense on the face of it) but among N firms where N >> 1 -- you are effectively ignoring terms that are o(1/N), which would include e.g. fluctuations around means and so forth.<br /><br />Assuming a large number of firms and production location density proportional to population density aren't that weird of simplifying assumptions -- and definitely not weirder than assuming constant returns to scale without any real explanation.Jason Smithhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12680061127040420047noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6837159629100463303.post-27717106141161344522015-05-20T06:32:23.308-07:002015-05-20T06:32:23.308-07:00The problem with lines going through data is that ...The problem with lines going through data is that the curves are altered to fit the belief. <br /><br />We live in a Procrustean world, where 40 years of policies trying to fit the world into a pretty theory have crippled the data. We have no idea what the 7ft or 4ft entity could do because they have all had their feet chopped off, or been subjected to the rack. NeilWhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11565959939525324309noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6837159629100463303.post-51462149272184996332015-05-19T21:47:18.013-07:002015-05-19T21:47:18.013-07:00Excellent as usual, Jason! Sure, looking at data i...Excellent as usual, Jason! Sure, looking at data in economics is about as messy as it gets, but without it you are really nowhere. My (limited) understanding is that back in the 1980s there was some real hope that string theory could eventually provide a parsimonious theory of force unification, but as more was learned about the math things really got bogged down without any obvious way to distinguish amongst the multiplicity of different solutions, given you couldn't match with experimental results. Todd Zorickhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10976192775890569092noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6837159629100463303.post-24270770772632834352015-05-19T20:19:01.142-07:002015-05-19T20:19:01.142-07:00Hi Jason,
When you wrote "is somehow less pr...Hi Jason,<br /><br />When you wrote "is somehow less problematic than this" did you mean 'is somehow <i>more</i> problematic than this' or am I just confused... ?John Handleyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16057855086740377031noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6837159629100463303.post-87427547547930439272015-05-19T18:11:00.899-07:002015-05-19T18:11:00.899-07:00This:
http://econospeak.blogspot.com/2015/05/math...This:<br /><br /><a href="http://econospeak.blogspot.com/2015/05/mathiness-and-growthiness.html" rel="nofollow">http://econospeak.blogspot.com/2015/05/mathiness-and-growthiness.html</a><br /><br />Expresses some of the same sentiments I do here ... with a better title.Jason Smithhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12680061127040420047noreply@blogger.com