when the facts change...

January 15, 2016 9:46 AM

Can Economics Change Your Mind?

Where to start? I could write a whole ongoing blog on this question ... Krugman on Mind-Altering Economics. Does Learning Economics Make You Antisocial? As economics deals with its math problem, will machine learning ascend?

posted by the man of twists and turns (15 comments total)

Its more, "Can empirical social science change your mind?"
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 10:22 AM on January 15, 2016 [2 favorites]

(Although Krugman does say that nice theoretical models can change peoples minds too. But for me, a nice formal model tells me why, rather than what).
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 10:27 AM on January 15, 2016 [1 favorite]

I've always been impressed by the chutzpah of economists. They claim to be studying human activity and when their predictions don't match what actual humans do they spend a lot of energy trying to explain that it's the subjects who are wrong, not their theories.
posted by benito.strauss at 10:52 AM on January 15, 2016 [9 favorites]

Didn't bother to read the articles, did you?
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 10:54 AM on January 15, 2016 [14 favorites]

Even if you are open to changing your mind based on empirical results, be careful not to base your views on one study. As MetaFilter has discussed before, studies are often not reproducible, and a meta-analysis of a body of studies will be more reliable than any one in particular. Of course, that's not always available, and we have to use the data we're given, but seeing one or two papers "proving" a result still doesn't mean it's certain.
posted by Rangi at 11:16 AM on January 15, 2016 [1 favorite]

The problem with economics is usually not with professional economists, but with people who say, "Okay, buddy, you clearly don't understand Economics 101."
posted by clawsoon at 11:54 AM on January 15, 2016 [2 favorites]

Didn't bother to read the articles, did you?

I don't want to put words in anyone's mouth, but I'm guessing benito.strauss read the first article (the only one above the fold), and is responding to the question it's posing. In which case, he's totally right to say "this guy has a ton of chutzpah," because the examples the author uses to frame the discussion are so mindbogglingly asinine that I can't figure out how he got them past an editor. Really, Adam Ozimek, you were firmly of the belief that free trade is a magic panacea for all economic woes for everyone everywhere, right up until you read an article that pointed out that (for example) the state of Michigan is experiencing a spot of trouble? Or we have Narayana Kocherlakota's sudden about-face on federal interest rates, which came after he became unable to ignore three years of actual results from the Fed actually doing things meticulously investigated the research on the subject. It didn't set out to do so, but this piece appears to be making the point that so-called economic experts don't actually know their ass from a hole in the ground.
posted by Mayor West at 12:08 PM on January 15, 2016

Really, Adam Ozimek, you were firmly of the belief that free trade is a magic panacea for all economic woes for everyone everywhere, right up until you read an article that pointed out that (for example) the state of Michigan is experiencing a spot of trouble?

Ozimek didn't say or even suggest anything like your gross mischaracterization that free trade is a 'magic panacea' or something equally silly. Moreover, he didn't read a paper that "pointed out" that Michigan suffered job losses from free trade--he read a paper about how rising imports exhibited a well-identified causal effect on export dominated area's unemployment level (so far all of this was common knowledge) and that this effect persisted longer than he had previously thought.
posted by MisantropicPainforest at 12:28 PM on January 15, 2016 [2 favorites]

I've become addicted to economics blogs over the past five years. They've changed my whole outlook on the world. They've given me a new vocabulary and set of mental tools to interpret reality. As much as economists may disagree, its a pleasure to read their debates and study their evidences. I often find myself thinking, "these are the only sane people on the internet." Economists are usually pretty fair and will admit when they're wrong. Some, like Bryan Caplan, make a fetish of being able to argue their opponents' points of view at least as well of their own.
posted by Modest House at 12:38 PM on January 15, 2016 [7 favorites]

Modest House, I'm very intrigued. Could you suggest some of your favorite economics blogs besides Caplan?
posted by kristi at 2:36 PM on January 15, 2016 [1 favorite]

Sure.
Economists View (Lotta charts)
Marginal Revolution (Tyler Cowan and Alex Tabarrok)
EconLog(Libertarian humanists)]
Paul Krugman (The guy)
Overcoming Bias (A definite mind-changer)
The Grumpy Economist
To name a few. They have led me to the world of ultra-rationalist blogs, whose superstar is
Slate Star Codex, which is not really an economics blog, but is written by a psychiatric fellow at a hospital in Ann Arbor, and is awesome.
Mind you, I don't read these things because I always agree with them. Most economists are a lot more libertarian than you or I. But always feel like I'm having my mind opened.
posted by Modest House at 7:17 PM on January 15, 2016 [10 favorites]

Slightly off topic, but this linked article, The Cowpox of Doubt, from the Slate Star Codex article was really interesting.
posted by bongo_x at 7:33 PM on January 15, 2016

Empirical evidence has changed my mind. I considered myself a libertarian until 2008. When the economy crashed I realized oh, that's what happens when you don't regulate it.
posted by foobaz at 7:48 PM on January 15, 2016 [4 favorites]

Good econ links. Another I like is Noahpinion (Noah Smith), who's blogged and spoken a bit on topic recently.
posted by 2N2222 at 12:33 AM on January 16, 2016

Shoutout to Steve Randy Waldman of interfluidity. I read all the blogs that Modest House mentions, as well as The Money Illusion and Brad Delong. They're all great. But Interfluidity is consistently the very, very best.

Waldman posts pretty rarely though.

One thing about Slate Star Codex, Overcoming Bias, and much of the stuff that goes under the name of economics at George Mason is that it has more in common with the rationalism movement that gave us effective altruism and Harry Potter and the Method of Rationality than it does with mainstream Econ. I'm okay with that, but it's important to note that the mix of libertarianism, rationalism, and economics is not at all the only way that the discipline of economics can go.
posted by anotherpanacea at 7:31 AM on January 16, 2016