As I talked about in previous posts, I'm still reading Kartik Athreya's book 'The Big Ideas in Macroeconomics'-which is a defense of what Stephen Williamson is always defending in such bellicose terms from Krugman, et. al.
I do find Katrik's book very good, however, as I've previously written about. He had actually read my comments and thanked me.
"your reaction was gratifying to read. The reason is that I was hoping from the very beginning that more people like you, with an abiding interest in the subject, would want to know what ideas guide us--even if you decide in the end that you are unpersuaded. You hit it exactly right when you saw that the method is not, despite what some repeatedly say, any sort of bludgeon against government (or the poor, the unfortunate, and the otherwise disenfranchised for that matter). This, and its coherence, are part of why it is not, as you say, "easily vanquished."
http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2014/04/i-exchange-emails-with-katrik-athreya.html
Of course, I have to quote this line of his again.
".Good luck in your evidently serious efforts to see what we are up to!"
Yes-my serious efforts to see what economists are up to: take that Scott Sumner.
What I do like about professor Athreya is he clearly really lis interested in educating the public about some very difficult, enigmatic ideas-or so the public finds them and as I think he might agree, many economists themselves can find their own discipline so. I think of Zizek here: the mysteries of the Russians are mysteries for the Russians as well. In other words-if you find me hard to figure I find myself hard to figure too-the Big Other experiences Himself as we do.
What I think Athreya does is do everything in his power to make these ideas accessible and he does an excellent job I believe. What he's done has not really been attempted before so really there isn't much to compare it with. Am I won over? Well I'm still not even 50% through the book-I know as I'm reading it on Kindle which tells you exactly how far you're through.
Much of his argument though is on the lines of: sure there are problems with Rational Expectations, Pareto Optimization, or aggregation-I think what he calls 'aggregation' is what might more pejoratively be called 'methodological individualism' but what can we replace it with? For instance we can do so much more with RE than anything else-without it we'd be crippled on so many important applications.
He makes a very interesting argument on homogeneous vs. heterogeneous preferences. He fully acknowledges heterogeneity but argues that there are limits on how much it can be used on many tasks. Then he argues that heterogeneity might actually be efficacious for those who argue we should forget equality in the economy: if preferences are heterogeneous then why can't vast differences in wealth be ascribed to different preferences? It's a different way of looking at it anyway.
In any case with all the lousy customer service you run into I'm beginning to think that maybe markets are super competitive maybe even purely so. After all, according to pure competition, a business should be indifferent whether a customer walks in the door in the next minute. I've got to say this is how many of them act. Some of them seem to actively not want customer service-of course, much of this is not the owners so much as the employees, but, in any case...
P.S. Yes, this observation is based on another bad customer service experience I had-maybe I'll fill you in later as the library's about to close.
I do find Katrik's book very good, however, as I've previously written about. He had actually read my comments and thanked me.
"your reaction was gratifying to read. The reason is that I was hoping from the very beginning that more people like you, with an abiding interest in the subject, would want to know what ideas guide us--even if you decide in the end that you are unpersuaded. You hit it exactly right when you saw that the method is not, despite what some repeatedly say, any sort of bludgeon against government (or the poor, the unfortunate, and the otherwise disenfranchised for that matter). This, and its coherence, are part of why it is not, as you say, "easily vanquished."
http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2014/04/i-exchange-emails-with-katrik-athreya.html
Of course, I have to quote this line of his again.
".Good luck in your evidently serious efforts to see what we are up to!"
Yes-my serious efforts to see what economists are up to: take that Scott Sumner.
What I do like about professor Athreya is he clearly really lis interested in educating the public about some very difficult, enigmatic ideas-or so the public finds them and as I think he might agree, many economists themselves can find their own discipline so. I think of Zizek here: the mysteries of the Russians are mysteries for the Russians as well. In other words-if you find me hard to figure I find myself hard to figure too-the Big Other experiences Himself as we do.
What I think Athreya does is do everything in his power to make these ideas accessible and he does an excellent job I believe. What he's done has not really been attempted before so really there isn't much to compare it with. Am I won over? Well I'm still not even 50% through the book-I know as I'm reading it on Kindle which tells you exactly how far you're through.
Much of his argument though is on the lines of: sure there are problems with Rational Expectations, Pareto Optimization, or aggregation-I think what he calls 'aggregation' is what might more pejoratively be called 'methodological individualism' but what can we replace it with? For instance we can do so much more with RE than anything else-without it we'd be crippled on so many important applications.
He makes a very interesting argument on homogeneous vs. heterogeneous preferences. He fully acknowledges heterogeneity but argues that there are limits on how much it can be used on many tasks. Then he argues that heterogeneity might actually be efficacious for those who argue we should forget equality in the economy: if preferences are heterogeneous then why can't vast differences in wealth be ascribed to different preferences? It's a different way of looking at it anyway.
In any case with all the lousy customer service you run into I'm beginning to think that maybe markets are super competitive maybe even purely so. After all, according to pure competition, a business should be indifferent whether a customer walks in the door in the next minute. I've got to say this is how many of them act. Some of them seem to actively not want customer service-of course, much of this is not the owners so much as the employees, but, in any case...
P.S. Yes, this observation is based on another bad customer service experience I had-maybe I'll fill you in later as the library's about to close.
If the price does not discriminate in this way, there will be significant health costs accompanying budget savings.
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