Misplaced Pages

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I'm a little concerned that Economics as a formal branch of mathematics is totally ignored here in favor of the social science, which came after the mathematical models. I'm also not sure it makes sense to call "scarcity" the fundamental concept underlying economics; I might have chosen rationality, comparability of values, or efficiency. No mention at all of important concepts like Pareto optimality, revealed preference, marginal utility? I'm just a dabbler, but surely there's someone here with a better background in mathematical economics that could do a reasonable job fixing this? --LDC

You are quite right - there is a mathematical side of economics (or as one of my professors would say hardcore econometrics). I could write up about 30-40 pages and subpages on the subject. It will take up some time though, and the real problem is to stick to the theoretical side and not to engage oneself into discussions about which view is right or wrong - we would clearly miss the point here. Anyway, you are the first person that has borught this up and I'm grateful for that. WP

Someone wrote a bad review of economics section at kuro5hin:

http://www.kuro5hin.org/comments/2001/9/24/43858/2479/4#4

This comment could help the section to improve?

joao

I put in a brief section on econometrics and added a little to the network effects section. Could add more, and may do so later. No guarantee it's totally precise and correct, but if I could do that off the top of my head, I'd probably be writing a textbook rather than updating Wiki b/c I felt like it ...

Some topics I think would be worthwhile (off the top of my head):

Game theory (linking to John Nash etc), pareto optimality, exchange rate theory (pegged, float, dirty-float), Bretton Woods, Neo-Keynesian school, Milton Friedman, the Austrian School, utility theory, revealed preference, cardinality and ordinality, simple supply and demand, oligopoloy / monopoly theory and competition, contestability, sunk costs, interest rates, money supply, the concept of a market, Walras and the concept of the auction, the business cycle, random walks, determinism and predictablity in economics (linking to chaos theory), financial markets, and theories of regulation and taxation.

Off the top of my head though - I might come back to do some of them if I've got the time. Haven't really thought about most of this stuff for a few years now ...

C

Yikes, I agree, those are all important. But let's get to neutral on the structure first. I think the Fundamentals and History section are better up front because they simply don't take sides or introduce 'capitalism vs. not' - actually they frame the idea of political economy almost perfectly, and show how animal (instinctual swaps) to hunter-gatherer to more complex trade build up... a very even beginning, but kind of out of place at the very very end - 24

That said, many people will come here wanting to do a crash course in Economics 101 and so political economy, fundamentals, foundations, etc., should be nothing but links up front for them... hard to know how to handle this.

On the other hand, some university-educated former peasant in Cambodia with 5000 words of English will come here wanting to know why "Economics" is destroying his village and country, and that market has less support from neutral sources.

I'd say, err heavily on the side of neutrality, since that improves articles and gives something that can't be provided elsewhere - a neutral point of view. Fundamentals would go first, mention the concerns of the non-capitalist schools, end with the concept of political economy, link off to capitalism, and then proceed to explain how that political economy's terms are applied in the present: the rest of the article. Is that fair enough?

My vote would be for keeping this article fairly short, and essentially just saying: here are all the articles we have on economics here in Misplaced Pages, with brief uncontroversial explanations. More controversial ideas, like, say, Marx vs Neoclassical, should go in the respective articles so that it is very clear who is saying what.

if that's the approach, then ONLY the Fundamentals section and a laundry list of different theories of political economy would go here. Since good old capitalism is the most prevalent, we can lay out the way it defines the major branches of economics: macro, micro, resource. And the theories classical, neoclassical, Keynes, etc.. But really that's more or less what the article is now. I agree completely that this article must not *COMPARE* different economic models, as that is the role of political economy anyway. This is also exactly what is done in factors of production, capital, means of production. So these five files have managed to be very neutral, and avoided taking sides extremely carefully. Tough since neoclassical/libertarian, classical/conservative, Marxist/socialist, green/environmental schools *PRETEND* they are talking about different things... but clearly and obviously aren't on micro-level.

so, I think the whole controversy is about macro, and that we should say that it is only about macro. In micro you can see a clean classical -> Marxist or neoclassical -> green transition with only very minor quirks of difference between the four. In Macro, basically, everything is religion.

If anything, I think the article could be slimmed down with, for example, some of the history stuff going in history of economic thought.

There's only one paragraph of history here now, and yes it should link to history of economic thought. I agree the whole article needs editing, but I can't see any content that can be omitted and still leave the casual reader roughly understanding the scope of real economics.

how about this. Fundamentals takes you from the simple difference between animals (who don't trade except for some apes who engage in prostitution...!) and the earliest human societies which trade loosely and informally, e.g. in hunter gatherer bands. That distinction is important to understanding that economics is not somethign made up by economists, as many people now believe. That section would take you up to political economy and explain that the most dominant political econmy is this thing capitalism which may be itself part of evolution or it may be just one way to do things (we should NOT take a side on THIS!) among humans (since trade is "our thing" that makes us unique I would hope we have a choice about it - but maybe not).

then, the *MICRO* concepts are introduced loosely with links to the other articles: factors of production, capital, etc.. Actually the way the micro articles are laid out is very good now and I think it is possible to explain each and every macro theory laying out how it sees each micro "style of capital" or whatever. MACRO is a dog no matter what you do, the fields don't agree, they don't want to agree, and politics is all over - see green economists or anti-globalization movement for a good list of current debates.

what I think we can't do is just slough this off on the reader with a list of links... as if the subject is too hot to handle. It isn't, the Fundamentals and the Micro factors of production are seen the same by all schools, even the Marxists - they just resist the term "human capital".

Rewrite improves it significantly, one nitpick: there is not enough focus on the thing economics is actually about - the formation, administration and optimization of *markets*, e.g. commodity markets. Mostly a matter of language, but all these players and studies are clustered around things, and those things are markets.

Another minor nitpick is that the Fundamentals section used to nicely bridge between the idea that economics is about the human ability to choose and trade, whereas the exactly same allocation of resources in other animals is guided mostly by instinct and is studied in biology and ecology. In the old wording, that bridged neatly to the hunter-gatherer society stuff. In the new one, it's a bit harder to tell how anyone could believe that hunter-gatherer society can be irrelevant if animal behavior and ecology are relevant... where is the bridge? This whole matter may need a rewrite to make the extreme views clear - I presume Margulis' flat statement that economics is ecology for humans is one such extreme. Is there another extreme saying that economics is the pinnacle of human activity coming directly from god, contrary in all ways to our animal nature, or whatever? Seems to me I've seen quotes like that...

Replaced scarcity, not because it isn't in the textbooks, but because "choices under scarcity" is just a verbose defintition of "trade". I vote for clarity.

"capitalism" doesn't belong on front page, i agree.

-speculation: in twenty years, economics will be incorporated as a branch of general systems theory. (doesn't belong on front page either)

MLP-Volt