commissioner.org
| Source | Louis Proyect |
| Date | 06/03/30/20:45 |
| commentisfree.guardian.co.uk
Dismal news about the dismal science A new piece of economics research suggests economists are more ruthless than others. Richard Adams March 30, 2006 04:32 PM WHEN THE CAMBRIDGE economist Piero Sraffa heard the US had dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, he went out and bought Japanese government bonds, on the grounds that they could only go up in value. They did so, spectacularly, and Sraffa later made a substantial sum. Hard-headed it may have been, Sraffa was being perfectly rational. But his is the sort of attitude that gives economists a bad reputation among the public, of knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing, confirming the label attributed to Thomas Carlyle (actually coined to describe liberals) of economics as "the dismal science". Lately, however, economists are in danger of becoming likeable: the booming sales of Steven Levitt's book Freakonomics and the "economics-lite" of Tim Harford suggests there is a market for user-friendly economics. Harford has a TV series coming up in which he at pains to point out that economists are cuddly, fun-loving guys and gals. And about time too. But before Meghnad Desai is recruited for the next edition of Celebrity Big Brother (actually, that's not such a crazy idea), have a look at this research just published in the Economic Journal by Ariel Rubinstein. He surveyed different groups of university students, including those studying economics, philosophy law, maths, and business administration. The survey asked how many workers the students would advise sacking from a notional company in some financial difficulty (I won't go into the details). By a substantial margin the economics students were prepared to sack more people than their opposite numbers in other disciplines. More in fact, than even the MBA students. Although this is not the first research to suggest economists might be selfish, the result still depressed Rubinstein, who concludes: "I believe that we actually do harm to our students in only teaching them the intricacies of mathematical models and that we are unintentionally distorting their economic views." He hopes that his research will "confront readers, especially the economists among them, with the results of how economics is taught and encourage them to consider changing our teaching methods." On that basis, Rubinstein himself has an unusual attitude for an economist when it comes to maximising profits. His personal web page has a foul colour, but has this very unusual link. In his list of publications he mentions one he edited, Game Theory in Economics, alongside a link entitled "My sincere opinions about buying this book", which takes you a comment: "I think that the book is outrageously priced (I am afraid I was very very naive when I signed the contract...) and thus, unfortunately, I cannot recommend buying it." In the meantime, it may be worth remembering that Sraffa, when he wasn't profiting from nuclear war, was also a friend and supporter of Antonio Gramsci. |
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