Tuesday, August 11, 2009

On getting crabby!

Rereading last night's post, Frustrations over production functions, I hate getting and sounding crabby. I really was frustrated.

All disciplines have their own structures and languages. These shift with time. Part of my frustration lay in the fact that I had to try and read a remarkably dry article first, part in my inability to help a tired girl who needed simplification before all else.

I do think, though, that the way economics has gone has been to its detriment.

The work of Solow and independently that of Trevor Swan were important in delineating some of the features and relationships that affected economic growth. However, the presentation of this material can be incredibly dry, to say the least!

I do love some of the quotes from Solow in the short Wikipedia article on him. On Milton Friedman:

Everything reminds Milton Friedman of the money supply. Everything reminds me of sex, but I try to keep it out of my papers.

Then on the computer age, echoing something that I have argued:

You can see the computer age everywhere but in the productivity statistics.

Just one more: 

There is no evidence that God ever intended the United States of America to have a higher per capita income than the rest of the world for eternity

4 comments:

Bob Q said...

Your daughter may do better reading economist blogs, rather than texts. Try www.harryrclarke.com for a rightish view and www.johnquiggin.com for a leftish view.

Both explorer current issues and apply economics to them.

I get more value from their posts than the actual discussions that follow, but there are other blogs mentioned at the sides of both of theirs.

Jim Belshaw said...

Thanks, Bob. I actually follow both, but hadn't thought to suggest them to Helen. Will do so. By the way, I probably should know this, is John a reli of yours?

Bob Q said...

Could be fraternally related, yes.

The informality and the attempts to grapple with real world stuff are the important parts that MAY appeal to Helen.

I found eco a real grind, even though I eventually got a degree in it, but it has been so useful ever since.

Jim Belshaw said...

I didn't find it a grind, I did it earlier, but I have certainly found it useful, Bob.