I liked Nassim Taleb’s argument that no statistician in his right mind would trust his model criteria to make life-or-death decisions. Quick example: If you are given the option to fly a plane with a 5% chance that it won’t fall down, would you get in? … Why then would you accept policy making for millions of people on the same criteria only?

Sadly:
1. seems as though people take sides in disagreements instead of attempting to be objective enough to consider both and

2. the field has been reduced to social statisticians (who lack the analytical ability to question what they’re doing in the first place).

In response to your two answers (making a better world and better understanding the world), I agree wholeheartedly.

Its as if being an economist is a position of honor. One that validates requiring the math without validating the math alone.

My immediate response to the question is the naive – perhaps cliche – statement that economists are there ‘to make the world a better place’… More specifically perhaps, we should be doing our jobs to understand that world – and define it – and then let the politicians try to make it better – with some well-placed advice.

I’d probably be on the side of the fence that agrees about the lack of macro in modern economics, and I would agree that a definite problem is the theorising about a world which is unreal, where we check the empirics to see if the model is close… Why not start with the world?

A long time ago I wondered how the economic theory of everything – general equilibrium – is a micro-theory… I’m still at a loss to find an answer.

Your thoughts?