"WARNING: Physics Envy May Be Hazardous To Your Wealth!", to appear in the Journal of Investment Management. They argue that economists' "physics envy" has led to "a false sense of mathematical precision in some cases", and they illustrate their argument by pointing to Paul Samuelson. They distinguish between uncertainty and risk and offer a checklist to assess the degree of uncertainty in your decision-making environment. They mention chaotic dynamics.
I find their references lacking. They don't reference Philip Mirowski, particularly his book More Heat Than Light in which he considers Samuelson. They do reference Frank Knight's Risk, Uncertainty, and Profit, but not Keynes. They do not reference G. L. S. Shackle and his role on the development of scenario planning. No reference to Joan Robinson appears. I think her 1974 paper "History vs. Equilibrium", with its distinction between logical time and historical time, is particularly apropos. Paul Davidson's 1982 JPKE paper, "Rational Expectations: A Fallacious Foundation for Studying Crucial Decision-Making Processes" is also of some importance, with its emphasis on the mainstream economist's assumption of ergodicity. J. Barkley Rosser, Jr., with his treatment of insights from complex dynamics, is also unreferenced.
I don't see why one would want to read Lo and Mueller until they engage some of this literature on their point.
Consider Andrew W. Lo and Mark T. Mueller's draft paper - Stiglitz the Keynesian... Web review of economics: Stigliz has an article, "Capitalist Fools", in the January issue of Vanity Fair. He argues that the new depression is the result of:Firing...
- It's Never Enough Until Your He... Web review of economics: Aaron Swartz quotes a paper by Louis Pascal posing a thought experiment. I wonder if many find this argument emotionally unsatisfying. It...
- Michele Boldrin Confused About Marx... Web review of economics: Michele Boldrin has written a paper in which supposedly Marxian themes are treated in a Dynamic Stochastic Equilibrium Model (DSGE). He...
- Negative Price Wicksell Effect, Pos... Web review of economics: 1.0 IntroductionI have previously suggested a taxonomy of Wicksell effects. This post presents an example with:The cost-minimizing...
- Designing A Keynesian Stimulus Plan... Web review of economics: Some version of this New York Times article contains the following passage:"A blueprint for such spending can be found in a study financed...
- Robert Paul Wolff Blogging On Books... Web review of economics: Here Wolff provides an overview of Marx, agrees with Morishima that Marx was a great economist, and mentions books by the analytical...
- Simple and Expanded Reproduction... Web review of economics: 1.0 IntroductionThis post presents a model in which a capitalist economy smoothly reproduces itself. The purpose of such a model is not to...
- How Individuals Can Choose, Even Th... Web review of economics: 1.0 IntroductionI think of this post as posing a research question. S. Abu Turab Rizvi re-interprets the primitives of social choice theory...
0 comments:
Post a Comment