28.4.09

Análise económica do fracasso dos economistas

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Barry Eichengreen recorre aos modelos da economia da informação para explicar porque falharam globalmente os economistas num artigo que escreveu para a National Interest. Eis uma das suas conclusões:
"The more housing prices rose and the longer predictions of their decline looked to be wrong, the lonelier the intellectual nonconformists became. Sociologists may be more familiar than economists with the psychic costs of nonconformity. But because there is a strong external demand for economists’ services, they may experience even-stronger economic incentives than their colleagues in other disciplines to conform to the industry-held view. They can thus incur even-greater costs—economic and also psychic—from falling out of step."
Barry acredita, porém, que as coisas vão melhorar:
"The late twentieth century was the heyday of deductive economics. Talented and facile theorists set the intellectual agenda. Their very facility enabled them to build models with virtually any implication, which meant that policy makers could pick and choose at their convenience. Theory turned out to be too malleable, in other words, to provide reliable guidance for policy.

"In contrast, the twenty-first century will be the age of inductive economics, when empiricists hold sway and advice is grounded in concrete observation of markets and their inhabitants. Work in economics, including the abstract model building in which theorists engage, will be guided more powerfully by this real-world observation. It is about time."
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2 comentários:

Anónimo disse...

Não seria mais agradável para quem o visita apresentar os textos em português? Afinal estamos em Portugal... e os ingleses não se deslocam a Portugal para se ilustrarem. Ouso comentar porque gosto deste blogue que até está nos topos dos meus favoritos

João Pinto e Castro disse...

Tem razão, mas tivemos que descontinuar o serviço de tradução derivado à crise.