Eugene Coyle wrote:
Max,
I was thinking of their solid marriage to neo-classical economics --
just tweaking it with a little behavioral adjustments. The following
quote is what scares me -- what put the kibosh on the Notre Dame econ
department, to all of our loss:
Like their intellectual godfather Thaler, the Obama wonks aren't
particularly interested in tearing down existing paradigms, just
adjusting and extending them when they become outdated. (Thaler urges
his students to master the same traditional, mathematical models their
colleagues do if they want to be taken seriously.)
It is true that to be "taken seriously" you need to demonstrate that
you won't think much about the theory, but when is CHANGE going to happen?
Gene
I'm not in a position to offer a dissertation on the new behavioral
economics, but
it is more than a trivial departure from straight neo-classical. There
is still plenty
to criticize there as well.
I have read a bunch of Goolsbee's papers and seen him in action, since
he works
in tax, and I have yet to see any NBE in it.
He's more like his buddy Steve Levitt, I would say an empiricist.
There's all sorts
of ways that can be criticized too, of course. But to me it beats the
mainstream
position as far as analyzing behavior.
Ironically enough, the neo-classical micro is more interesting
as a way to model planning, something Marx never got around to.
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