Talk:Economics/Archive 1
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Economics as a branch of mathematics
I'm a little concerned that Economics as a formal branch of mathematics is totally ignored here in favor of the social science, which came after the mathematical models. I'm also not sure it makes sense to call "scarcity" the fundamental concept underlying economics; I might have chosen rationality, comparability of values, or efficiency. No mention at all of important concepts like Pareto optimality, revealed preference, marginal utility? I'm just a dabbler, but surely there's someone here with a better background in mathematical economics that could do a reasonable job fixing this? --LDC
- Scarcity is in fact fundamental. If goods aren't scarce we can have all we want of them and so there is no need for economics. All the other terms-- like marginal utility, efficiency -- LDC mentions become important because we have scarcity.
- Further, mathematics is just a tool albeit a a very important one -- not an end in itself -- in economics. First and foremost, Economics is a social sciense. Historically, economics as a social science came first and the use of mathematics was introduced gradually.
Dated June 15, 2002 by User:Gretchen
You are quite right - there is a mathematical side of economics (or as one of my professors would say hardcore econometrics). I could write up about 30-40 pages and subpages on the subject. It will take up some time though, and the real problem is to stick to the theoretical side and not to engage oneself into discussions about which view is right or wrong - we would clearly miss the point here. Anyway, you are the first person that has borught this up and I'm grateful for that. WP
Bad review of economics section
Someone wrote a bad review of economics section at kuro5hin:
http://www.kuro5hin.org/comments/2001/9/24/43858/2479/4#4
This comment could help the section to improve?
- Not if it's from September 2001, as it appears to be. The economics section here now bears simply no resemblance to what was here then. It's now really quite good, and contains a wide variety of topic coverage. The main page economics is not good enough, among other things it simply fails to explain scarcity well enough. Someone should dig around in the older versions to find a better explanation.
Dated September 12, 2003 by User:142.177.79.81
I put in a brief section on econometrics and added a little to the network effects section. Could add more, and may do so later. No guarantee it's totally precise and correct, but if I could do that off the top of my head, I'd probably be writing a textbook rather than updating Wiki b/c I felt like it ...
Some topics I think would be worthwhile (off the top of my head):
Game theory (linking to John Nash etc), pareto optimality, exchange rate theory (pegged, float, dirty-float), Bretton Woods, Neo-Keynesian school, Milton Friedman, the Austrian School, utility theory, revealed preference, cardinality and ordinality, simple supply and demand, oligopoloy / monopoly theory and competition, contestability, sunk costs, interest rates, money supply, the concept of a market, Walras and the concept of the auction, the business cycle, random walks, determinism and predictablity in economics (linking to chaos theory), financial markets, and theories of regulation and taxation.
Off the top of my head though - I might come back to do some of them if I've got the time. Haven't really thought about most of this stuff for a few years now ...
C
Dated: February 25, 2002 apparently by User:Conversion script