A threat to MIT? Harvard Engineering School! Gotta be kidding!!!

Colleges and Universities A-Z Massachusetts Institute of Technology
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<p>
[quote]
I vehemently disagree that political applications today are the most important part of economics. Almost by definition, they're most important to non-economists, but within the discipline the vast bulk is NOT macro and NOT intended for immediate application. Most economists want to deduce the essential rules and properties that affect choice behavior, and realize that it's a long way before that work is applied to political issues. What economists who advise policy do now is make guesses based on incomplete information (although, obviously, the statstics and other tools used can be quite sophisticated.)

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</p>

<p>Well, I'll put it to you this way. A few years ago, I read a survey done by economists, for economists, in which economics faculty members of the most prominent department were asked to name the most important economist of modern times. The overwhelming winner? Keynes. Remember, this wasn't a survey of just the laymen. This was a survey of economists themselves.</p>

<p>Why was Keynes chosen? Well, I don't think the survey asked that question, but I have to believe it's because not only of Keynes's ideas, but more importantly, because they were so heavily implemented such that people could see the strengths and weaknesses of Keynes's ideas. I believe the implicit comment was to say who really cares about having grand economics ideas if they are never implemented? Again, you raised the example of Samuelson. Yet Samuelson was a passionate Keynesian. In fact, I think even Samuelson himself once said that he considered himself to be basically unworthy compared to Keynes. </p>

<p>Hence, if anything, it seems to me that economists have 'Keynes-envy'. I doubt that there is an economist in the world who would dare say that he is better than Keynes. </p>

<p>Others on the survey were people like Schumpeter, Friedman, and (yes) Hayek. Again, these were economists whose ideas were politically embraced, and hence widely implemented. It seems to me if economists are voting for people like that, then what they truly hunger for is political acceptance of their ideas, if, for no other reason, than because it provides them a method for their ideas to be implemented. </p>

<p>
[quote]
You continue to ignore that experimental economics has had a meteoric rise, and the Hayek (Austrian) school is not well-represented in economics at all today. The vast majority of economists today are empiricists who believe in mathematical theories tested by empirical observations. Yes, economics has had odd phases (like chemistry) but don't accuse the discipline of being nonscientific because a (very famous and smart) gentleman once held views which have now mostly been rejected.

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</p>

<p>I am not ignoring the role of experimental economics. What I am saying is that I don't think that experimental economics is becoming more important than it was in the past. Like I said, the bulk of the recent JCS winners are mostly conceptualists, not experimentalists, and certainly not mathematicians. This is an omen that would indicate that the Nobel winners of the near future will probably also be conceptualists. Who will win the Nobels after the near-future? Nobody knows, but the point is, I don't see any indication that they will be taken over by more scientifically oriented practitioners. </p>

<p>And if you think the ideas of the Austrian School, and Hayek specifically, are being rejected today, you may want to think again. In fact, the opposite is almost certainly true - his ideas are gaining greater acceptance every day. One of Hayek's major tenets was the opposition to state control of the economy, and especially to nationalization of industries. All you have to do is look at the 2 most populous nations on Earth - China and India - and you have to conclude that the world economy as a whole is being less and less nationalized and more privatized. After all, in those 2 countries alone, that's nearly half of the population of the world whose governments are releasing more and more control of their economies from the government and to the private sector. Both of these countries' economies are less subject to the government than they were even 10 years ago. Other populous areas such as Japan, Brazil, South Korea, Eastern Europe, Indonesia, etc. are also privatizing more parts of their economies. True, there has been some backsliding in Russia and in certain countries of South America, but by and large, the world economy is becoming less statist, not more, which means that Hayek's ideas are actually advancing, not retreating. </p>

<p>Besides, Hayek was not the only 'Austrian'. It wasn't a School of One, you know. Carl Menger and Eugen Bohm-Bawerk were members of the School. They greatly advanced monetary theory by deducing the relationship between money supply and inflation, something that may seem obvious today but was clearly not obvious to the economists before him. When Ben Bernanke manipulates interest rates in an attempt to ward off inflation while providing steady economic growth, that entire economic philosophy came from the Austrian School. These guys also discovered the principle of marginal utility and marginalism, which solved one of Adam Smith's greatest conundrums, the diamond-water paradox (in which he wondered why is is that water, which was essential to life, was basically free of charge, but diamonds, which are functionally useless, nevertheless cost a fortune). Marginalism is now a cornerstone of microeconomics. We have the Austrian School members to thank for that. </p>

<p>True, those guys are long dead, but plenty of Austrian members are still alive and highly prominent today. For example, current members include James Buchanan, winner of the 1986 Nobel Prize for his work on public choice theory. I don't believe that Buchanan has been discredited or is receding in prominence, if anything it is actually spreading. Heck, Buchanan has sometimes been dubbed the 'new Hayek', as his work demonstrates the problems of government regulation within the economy and has been seized upon by the proponents of privatization. </p>

<p>Israel Kirzner at NYU, who specializes in entrepreneurship, is also an Austrian member. Oskar Morganstern, one of the original founders of Game Theory, was a member of the Austrian School. The list goes on.</p>

<p>Many of the ideas of the Austrian School have been taken by the neoclassical school, much like much of the old Whig political party of the 1800's was encapsulated within the newly born Republican Party. Neoclassicalism is clearly one of the dominant schools of economic thought of today. </p>

<p>I don't deny that there is a place for experimentation and analytical rigor within economics. But the fact is, much of economics continues to be purely conceptual and philosophical, and I don't see that this is going to change anytime in the near future.</p>

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<p>sakky, that post was a confused core dump. Could you please do me a big favor and try to think a little about what the issue is before writing down a bunch of mostly irrelevant facts in the hope that such a "factual" style wins arguments?</p>

<p>The problem with your core dump? Of course members of the Austrian school had ideas about the economy that are valuable today, but I wasn't saying that all their ideas were worthless. (Even the alchemists made valuable contributions -- Newton was one.) We were talking about the Austrians' philosophical rejection of empiricism. (That was why you brought them up -- to suggest that economics is inherently unscientific.)</p>

<p>Name one economist working today at a top-20 department who thinks empirical evidence is not the main ground on which theories should be accepted or rejected. Just a quote, with citation, will do.</p>

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<p>sakky,</p>

<p>Just a minor question: Wasn't this survey you mention done by the Post-Autistic Econ group? </p>

<p>If so, it wasn't a random survey, and it was heavily biased towards more radical, post-Keynesian, non-mainstream economists. The prominence of Galbraith on the list is telling. No survey of the American Econ Association done randomly would possibly put Galbraith in the top ten or twenty, or possibly even, top 50.</p>

<p>And I thought the question was Who was the most influential economist in the 20th century? If that was the standard, Keynes does rank highly.</p>

<p>If this is another survey, and it really was a random sample of the econ profession, I'd appreciate the cite.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
Actually what interests me is the competition between MIT and Harvard in biology. Especially synethetic biology, which is a basically CS + bioengineering. Not sure who would win out here.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Biology: H <--- Medical School
BIOengineering:H, same as above
bioENGIEERING: MIT,<------It's Engineering
bioengineering + CS : MIT <------- tera flops for numerical computaions involving billions of nodes</p>

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<p>The above post illustrates exactly why CC can be such an authoritative source for precise and meaningful comparisons of institutions.</p>

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<p><em>bangs head on desk</em></p>

<p>There needs to be some training around this joint on what is an apple and what is an orange. And how not to compare the two.</p>

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<p>
[quote]

Name one economist working today at a top-20 department who thinks empirical evidence is not the main ground on which theories should be accepted or rejected. Just a quote, with citation, will do.

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<p>Come now. You know that from a political standpoint, few if any economists would ever explicitly state such a blatantly controversial stand. After all, why would they say that? What would they gain by doing that? </p>

<p>What matters is not what they SAY, it matters what they DO. And that's the entire crux of my posts here - that plenty of economists, whether members of the Austrian School or not, produce work that is highly respected that is nevertheless not validated experimentally. Like I said, this is why there can be so many schools of economic thought today, with the clash between the NeoKeynesians vs. the Neoclassicists being the most prominent, simply because neither side can unequivocally prove their argument experimentally. And like I said again, the bulk of the JBC winnners in the last 15 years have not been experimentalists, but rather conceptualists.</p>

<p>Hence, I fail to see how the data supports your contention that economics is becoming more experimental. In fact, an argument could be made that it is actually becoming LESS experimental.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
Wasn't this survey you mention done by the Post-Autistic Econ group? </p>

<p>If so, it wasn't a random survey, and it was heavily biased towards more radical, post-Keynesian, non-mainstream economists. The prominence of Galbraith on the list is telling. No survey of the American Econ Association done randomly would possibly put Galbraith in the top ten or twenty, or possibly even, top 50.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>While I don't remember (it was years ago when I read the survey), I don't recall seeing Galbraith high on the list, so I don't think we read the same survey. </p>

<p>
[quote]
that was the standard, Keynes does rank highly.

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</p>

<p>That's the part I remember the most. Not that this result should be surprising to anybody - I think almost every living economist today respects the work of Keynes.</p>

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<p>sakky writes:

[quote]
I think almost every living economist today respects the work of Keynes.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>That's strictly false, and you should take it back. I work with a very well-known economist (he co-edited the most prominent journal in the profession, the AER, for 9 years) and he does not think highly of Keynes at all. In a recent review of Tim Hartford's The Undercover Economist, he writes
[quote]
Mr. Harford doesn’t just hold the opinion that John Maynard Keynes was the most influential economist of the twentieth century; he thinks it is a fact. But shouldn’t that title belong to Paul Samuelson, who changed the toolkit of the profession? Kenneth Arrow – through both general equilibrium and social choice – was influential in a lasting way. Milton Friedman also left a strong imprint on the profession. Has Keynes? Picking Keynes as the most influential economist of the twentieth century is like picking Bobby Riggs as the most influential tennis star, confusing notoriety with influence.

[/quote]
I know you'll say that Samuelson loved Keynes, so we should too... so please spare us. Just observe that a pretty random poke quickly finds an economist who doesn't agree with Samuelson about Keynes and doesn't think so much of Keynes. And this is not some hick economist from the backwoods -- it's a prominent professor and former editor of the profession's top journal.</p>

<p>Wouldn't you agree, sakky, that it's a little presumptious to talk about what almost every living economist today thinks without being one, especially when counterexamples can be found right and left?</p>

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<p>As to the main issue:
[quote]
plenty of economists, whether members of the Austrian School or not, produce work that is highly respected that is nevertheless not validated experimentally.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>That's not the same as saying that economics is unscientific. As you know, none of the work done in string theory or gravitational wave theory in physics has been validated experimentally. The experiments you would need are too big and complicated, though we are getting closer to being able to do them. </p>

<p>Do you want to tell me, dear sakky, that physics is not a real science?</p>

<p>The point is very simple. It is hard to do good empirical work in modern economics (just ask Not quite old), just like it is hard to do good empirical work in modern physics. Lots of people have competing theories that await examination by good experiments. But that doesn't make the theories unscientific, and it certainly doesn't imply that the theorists don't care about empirical tests.</p>

<p>Since the reasoning you use to argue that modern economists are "conceptualists" and not real scientists could also be applied to large swaths of modern physicists, I will concede your point. Economists are non-scientists just like physicists are non-scientists.</p>

<p>(Plainer put: your argument is unsound, as seen above, and obviously you can't find a quote to settle the issue because nobody believes the silly thing you think they believe. So I would expect you to honorably concede at this point, dear sakky ;-)</p>

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<p>To return to the topic:</p>

<p>Olin ftw!!!</p>

<p>Here at Olin, we pwn all forms of noobs, and please believe we will be the most reputable engineering program in the world within the next 10 years.</p>

<p>Keep in mind, Olin was founded because the NSF was complaining that engineering grads sucked in some areas. Olin is the next stage of evolution. You dinosaurs are obsolete, and natural selection is going to pwn you.</p>

<p>Don't take my word for it, just watch. Until then you can sit in comfort on your ivory towers... but your days are numbered.</p>

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<p>show the goods before you pwn the n00bs. greatness is usually not characterized by premature big talk ;-)</p>

<p>i think olin is great btw.</p>

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<p>jw, but why do people characterize grad schools and colleges by the superstars that emerge from there? Who cares if XYZ genius emerged from ABC school. Unless that genius is on the faculty, how does that make the school great? It seems more like the individual who is genius, rather than the college. No offense meant though.</p>

<p>btw, olin college mail is funny.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
Wouldn't you agree, sakky, that it's a little presumptious to talk about what almost every living economist today thinks without being one, especially when counterexamples can be found right and left?

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</p>

<p>And when exactly did I say that I was talking about what EVERY living economist said? I am telling you what the results of the survey said. It obviously wasn't an unanimous survey. After all, there are some economists who still think Marx is the greatest thing since sliced bread.</p>

<p>In fact, this shows the inherent subjectivity of economics. The fact that somebody like Marx can still command great respect among some economics despite (I think) being discredited shows that economics is not really a hard science. </p>

<p>
[quote]
That's not the same as saying that economics is unscientific. As you know, none of the work done in string theory or gravitational wave theory in physics has been validated experimentally. The experiments you would need are too big and complicated, though we are getting closer to being able to do them.

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</p>

<p>Yeah, but the major difference is that the work in string theory or gravitational theory can be proved to be incorrect. Whereas, the fact is, you can never truly prove indisputably that an economics theory is wrong. Which is, again, why Marx is still popular with some economists. You would think that the failure of the Soviet Union would have demonstrated the shortcomings of Marxism, but true Marxists would say that the Soviet Union wasn't "really" true Marxism, etc. </p>

<p>I agree, and have always agreed that certain parts of economics can be scientific. But certainly not all of it. And often times, it's because economists don't WANT it to be truly scientific. For example, reading Thomas Sowell, he remarked himself, in the book "Knowledge and Decisions", that the information discovery mechanism as transmitted by prices can, quote, "never be reduced to a science". Keep in mind that Sowell holds a PhD in economics from Chicago and was a tenured economics prof at UCLA for several decades.</p>

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<p>You kept insisting that virtually everyone respects Keynes. (Quote: "I think almost every living economist today respects the work of Keynes.") Without trying very hard, I pulled out an economist who is very representative of the profession who says outright that he doesn't. Surely your insistence about "almost all" economists (to use your own words) doesn't hold very much water if I can immediately find an editor of the profession's top journal who is a counterexample. Don't weasel on this point. It's pretty clear you overreached.</p>

<p>I also am not sure that any survey would turn up Keynes as the most important influence on economics in the twentieth century. If "most politically influential" is the metric, then Keynes winning is a simple matter of fact. But if it is importance to shaping economics, I think the quote from my prof above is right. He didn't really change the profession. So I, like NQO, will ask for a citation before I believe your survey claim.</p>

<p>Finally, we weren't arguing about the fringes of the economics profession (Marxists, for example). We were talking about the mainstream, which is now wholly occupied by people formulating rigorous mathematical theories and/or testing them with empirical data, just like physicists. (You mentioned Steve Levitt earlier. Steve Levitt runs regressions! Every day! That's unscientific?)</p>

<p>Btw, I slightly regret getting into this... it's just that you made some very bold claims about the profession which didn't strike me as having any vague resemblance to the kind of work that is actually done in economics departments today. I do not claim, of course, that it is a science exactly like physics, but I think it's also a lot different from the way you say it is, and I thought that needed to be said.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
You kept insisting that virtually everyone respects Keynes. (Quote: "I think almost every living economist today respects the work of Keynes.") Without trying very hard, I pulled out an economist who is very representative of the profession who says outright that he doesn't. Surely your insistence about "almost all" economists (to use your own words) doesn't hold very much water if I can immediately find an editor of the profession's top journal who is a counterexample. Don't weasel on this point. It's pretty clear you overreached.

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</p>

<p>Hey, without reaching very hard, I can think of an economist who still likes Marx. But that doesn't mean that such an attitude is representative of economics as a whole. </p>

<p>
[quote]
Finally, we weren't arguing about the fringes of the economics profession (Marxists, for example). We were talking about the mainstream, which is now wholly occupied by people formulating rigorous mathematical theories and/or testing them with empirical data, just like physicists. (You mentioned Steve Levitt earlier. Steve Levitt runs regressions! Every day! That's unscientific?)

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Again, here is where I disagree. In fact, I believe that Levitt admitted that one of his regressions was shown to have been debunked. So if he is primarily a regressionist, he doesn't seem to be a particularly good one.</p>

<p>But that's not the point. The point at hand is that economics still contains a tremendous level of conceptualization. Regression proves nothing, as regressions by themselves do not satisfy the requirement of hard sciences to be able to run experiments. Experiments are forward looking, not backward looking. For example, some political scientists also do heavy regression, but that doesn't make political science a true science. Heck, the Sloan School runs plenty of business regressions, but the notion that management is a science is still a laughable one even at MIT. The key is not to examine past data statistically, but to be able to run controlled experiments in the future. Can economics do that in certain instances? Sure. But to assert that this is the way that all economics will be in the future, I find that dubious. </p>

<p>
[quote]
Btw, I slightly regret getting into this... it's just that you made some very bold claims about the profession which didn't strike me as having any vague resemblance to the kind of work that is actually done in economics departments today. I do not claim, of course, that it is a science exactly like physics, but I think it's also a lot different from the way you say it is, and I thought that needed to be said

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I never said that economics could not ever become more scientific. And I freely agree that certain aspects of economics are indeed becoming highly scientific. But I think a strong distinction needs to be made between something like economics and the true hard sciences like physics or chemistry. Is it possible that economics might be a true hard science in the future? Yes, it is possible. But it certainly isn't guaranteed that this will happen. </p>

<p>I think the proper analogy is metaphysics. Metaphysics is not scientific, and probably never will be. Now, obviously one particular branch of metaphysics (that of 'true' physics) is scientific, in fact, so much so, that it eventually broke free of metaphysics to become its own discipline. So I can see how certain aspects of economics, notably the experimental economics subdiscipline, might one day truly break free of economics as a whole to become a highly scientific discipline in its own right. But I don't know that economics as a whole will be scientific, and certainly not in the way that physics or chemistry is scientific.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
I believe that Levitt admitted that one of his regressions was shown to have been debunked.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>No, that is false. Levitt admitted a fairly small calculation mistake which did not change the conclusions of a paper (the famous abortion paper). That's your evidence that he is not a statistics guy -- that one of his papers contained a slight computation error? How many times do you think that happens a day in physics? </p>

<p>This is exactly the problem when you talk about economics. You cite vague half-recollections as if they said something about the profession, and most of the time there wouldn't even be anyone around to point out how drastic your misstatements are.</p>

<p>
[quote]
regressions by themselves do not satisfy the requirement of hard sciences to be able to run experiments.

[/quote]
Your thoughts on the philosophy of science have the coherence of thin oatmeal. When was the last time you saw an experiment in intergalactic astronomy? Is that not a science? Please tell me where in the rulebook it says controlled experiments are the sine qua non of real science?</p>

<p>Anyway, the real way to settle this debate: go open the most recent issue of the American Economic Review or Econometrica or the Quarterly Journal of Economics. Flip through them randomly. If you can find one article which is neither (a) testing a model empirically using statistical techniques extremely similar to those used in, say, modern astronomy; nor (b) using mathematics to prove theorems about the implications of a model, maybe we'll have something to talk about. Otherwise, the economics you are talking about is 50 years old, and I think it is pointless to have a debate about the distant past.</p>

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<p>I will put it to you this way, Ben Golub. </p>

<p>Find me a single physicist or a chemist who thinks that economics is a true hard science. I doubt that you will be able to. </p>

<p>Secondly, your discussion of the use of mathematics within economics proves nothing. Mathematics as a pure discipline is not a 'science'. Just because a particular discipline uses lots of mathematics does not make it scientific. </p>

<p>
[quote]
No, that is false. Levitt admitted a fairly small calculation mistake which did not change the conclusions of a paper (the famous abortion paper). That's your evidence that he is not a statistics guy -- that one of his papers contained a slight computation error? How many times do you think that happens a day in physics? </p>

<p>This is exactly the problem when you talk about economics. You cite vague half-recollections as if they said something about the profession, and most of the time there wouldn't even be anyone around to point out how drastic your misstatements are.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>No, that is not the crux of what I am saying. What I am saying is that the simple use of statistics or regression alone do not demonstrate that something is 'scientific'. Again, like I said, the Sloan School at MIT uses all kinds of regression analyses, yet the notion that management is actually a science is not taken to be a credible notion within most of MIT, and even within much of the Sloan School. A guy like Leavitt would be perfectly at home at a place like the Sloan School - a place that uses lots of math and statistical regression, but would have a very hard time convincing the rest of the university community that what he is doing is truly a 'science'. </p>

<p>
[quote]
Anyway, the real way to settle this debate: go open the most recent issue of the American Economic Review or Econometrica or the Quarterly Journal of Economics. Flip through them randomly. If you can find one article which is neither (a) testing a model empirically using statistical techniques extremely similar to those used in, say, modern astronomy; nor (b) using mathematics to prove theorems about the implications of a model, maybe we'll have something to talk about. Otherwise, the economics you are talking about is 50 years old, and I think it is pointless to have a debate about the distant past.

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</p>

<p>It's NOT a matter of the distant past. Again, go up to any physicist, chemist, or biologist today and attempt to argue with them that economics is just as scientific as those disciplines, and get prepared to be laughed right out of the room. Why is that? Either these true scientists are "stupid" in not accepting the claim of economists that they are true scientists, or that they actually have a reason to be laughing.</p>

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<p>You want evidence that traditional "hard" scientists respect economics as a science? Maybe you should read a little more. At Caltech, a famous economist (Colin Camerer) works with neuroscientists and publishes papers in Science. (See e.g. Tomlin, D., Quartz, S., Camerer, C., Montague P.R. "Agent-specific correlates of activity in cingulate cortex in trust games", Science, 19 May 2006.)</p>

<p>Clearly these neuroscientists cowriting papers with Camerer (which combine economics and leading-edge work in biology) must think that he doesn't do real science. That's why they work with him and publish joint papers spanning their disciplines in the most prestigious scientific journal.</p>

<p>Put that in your pipe and smoke it.</p>

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<p>Oh, and if you want it more explicitly, here is a</a> paper by three respected physicists which asks "Is Economics the Next Physical Science?" and answers yes. (This directly rebuts your silliness above. Because you are silly.)</p>