That's kind of glib, like the vaunted spherical cow. What do you mean by "modern economic theory".
I follow a number of blogs by real economists (you know, the kind who are actually scientists who are open to admitting their predictions failed and adjusting accordingly instead of doubling down on patent bullshit).
Making clear assumptions in your model to simplify matters is totally OK, so long as you then temper your conclusions with a nod to real world friction. To that extent, Brashear's quip is sound and not necessarily pejorative. Sadly, there are plenty of "economists" who don't have any scientific integrity to speak of who are real choosy about what external contrary evidence they will even acknowledge the existence of. Many are lauded as Very Serious People whose pronouncements are to be given great weight and little scrutiny.
But, like the perfectly spherical cow, it's got elements of harsh truth to it.
As a former physicist I laugh ruefully when people joke about frictionless cows and massless surfaces, but grumble when I do need to account for that crap, and feel the dichotomy of the realistic models versus the solvable models.
As an armchair economist, one who wasted a lot of time in the 00s talking to economists who were driving the world's economy off a cliff with their assumptions, I laugh ruefully when they point to smooth supply/demand curves, and I remind them that humans are the friction in their system. We destroy value wantonly with our existence, act irrationally, and all these other things that "make no sense" but "don't matter" because "the market will right itself" and all that.
I don't use scare quotes, because those people are still widely regarded as actual economists. Fact-based economics is so fringe as to be the rare exception. I salute folks like this person for tirelessly trying to point out the emperor not only had no clothes, but didn't understand the concept of dressing at all.
Perhaps based on your words there's been a change, and scientific economics (inasmuch as we can't do more than observational science on world economies) is now a thing? (I mean, for the next week or so, before fact goes completely out the window?)
Those economists you speak of have consistently refused to take account of the failures of their predictions. By refusing to do so, they show themselves to lack scientific integrity, thus the scare quotes.
Unfortunately, those "economists" are over-represented on the right wing of the political spectrum. Maybe I've managed to back into the fringe, but I'm not sure your pessimism is fully warranted. I certainly have no expectations that a scientific approach to economics is going to become the rule in the powers that be today. If one wants economics to be treated as a science, then one must adhere to principle of science. Many practitioners today are not scientists but men of unshakeable faith, where evidence is irrelevant to one's firmly held belief.
Note also that there have been a number of experiments tried out in recent years. Contrast Kansas with California, for example. It was not a planned experiment, but amounts to one, from which conclusions may be reached. Will those demonstrated outcomes influence the course of future events? Good question. The voters in Kansas seem to have affirmed the awful choices made by their elected leaders by returning them to office.
(no subject)
(no subject)
I follow a number of blogs by real economists (you know, the kind who are actually scientists who are open to admitting their predictions failed and adjusting accordingly instead of doubling down on patent bullshit).
Making clear assumptions in your model to simplify matters is totally OK, so long as you then temper your conclusions with a nod to real world friction. To that extent, Brashear's quip is sound and not necessarily pejorative. Sadly, there are plenty of "economists" who don't have any scientific integrity to speak of who are real choosy about what external contrary evidence they will even acknowledge the existence of. Many are lauded as Very Serious People whose pronouncements are to be given great weight and little scrutiny.
(no subject)
But, like the perfectly spherical cow, it's got elements of harsh truth to it.
As a former physicist I laugh ruefully when people joke about frictionless cows and massless surfaces, but grumble when I do need to account for that crap, and feel the dichotomy of the realistic models versus the solvable models.
As an armchair economist, one who wasted a lot of time in the 00s talking to economists who were driving the world's economy off a cliff with their assumptions, I laugh ruefully when they point to smooth supply/demand curves, and I remind them that humans are the friction in their system. We destroy value wantonly with our existence, act irrationally, and all these other things that "make no sense" but "don't matter" because "the market will right itself" and all that.
I don't use scare quotes, because those people are still widely regarded as actual economists. Fact-based economics is so fringe as to be the rare exception. I salute folks like this person for tirelessly trying to point out the emperor not only had no clothes, but didn't understand the concept of dressing at all.
Perhaps based on your words there's been a change, and scientific economics (inasmuch as we can't do more than observational science on world economies) is now a thing? (I mean, for the next week or so, before fact goes completely out the window?)
(no subject)
Unfortunately, those "economists" are over-represented on the right wing of the political spectrum. Maybe I've managed to back into the fringe, but I'm not sure your pessimism is fully warranted. I certainly have no expectations that a scientific approach to economics is going to become the rule in the powers that be today. If one wants economics to be treated as a science, then one must adhere to principle of science. Many practitioners today are not scientists but men of unshakeable faith, where evidence is irrelevant to one's firmly held belief.
Note also that there have been a number of experiments tried out in recent years. Contrast Kansas with California, for example. It was not a planned experiment, but amounts to one, from which conclusions may be reached. Will those demonstrated outcomes influence the course of future events? Good question. The voters in Kansas seem to have affirmed the awful choices made by their elected leaders by returning them to office.