Reporting on cutting-edge advances in economics, this book presents a selection of commentaries that reveal the weaknesses of several core economics concepts. Economics is a vigorous and progressive science, which does not lose its force when particular parts of its theory are empirically invalidated; instead, they contribute to the accumulation of knowledge.
By discussing problematic theoretical assumptions and drawing on the latest empirical research, the authors question specific hypotheses and reject major economic ideas from the “Coase Theorem” to “Say’s Law” and “Bayesianism.” Many of these ideas remain prominent among politicians, economists and the general public. Yet, in the light of the financial crisis, they have lost both their relevance and supporting empirical evidence.
This fascinating and thought-provoking collection of 71 short essays written by respected economists and social scientists from all over the world will appeal to anyone interested in scientific progress and the further development of economics.
Author(s): Bruno S. Frey and David Iselin
Publisher: Springer International Publishing, Cham
Year: 2017
Language: English
Commentary: Critic of older Economic ideas, in 71 esays
Pages: 168
Tags: Critic of older Economic ideas, in 71 esays
Contents
Capitalism 1
Daron Acemoglu
Sola Protestantism in Economics 5
Rüdiger Bachmann
Economics Has Nothing to Do with Religion 9
Sascha O. Becker
More Choice Is Always Better 11
Christine Benesch
People Are Outcome Oriented 13
Matthias Benz
Deriving People’s Trade Policy Preferences from Macroeconomic
Trade Theory 15
Thomas Bernauer
Size (of Government) Doesn’t Matter 17
Tim Besley
Bayesianism 21
Ken Binmore
The Return on Equity 23
Urs Birchler
vii
Contents
Peak Oil Theory 27
Charles B. Blankart
More Choice Is Always Better 29
Alan S. Blinder
(Un)Productive Labor 31
Monika Bütler
Volatility Is Risk 33
Peter Cauwels
Robots Will Take All Our Jobs 35
Reto Cueni
Economic Growth Increases People’s Well-Being 37
Richard A. Easterlin
Big Data Predictions Devoid of Theory 39
Thomas Ehrmann
Government Debts Are a Burden on Future Generations 43
Reiner Eichenberger
Public Spending Reduces Unemployment 45
Lars P. Feld
The Capital Asset Pricing Model 47
Pablo Fernandez
Innovation Programs Lead to Innovation 51
Gerd Folkers
Factors of Production Are Homogenous Within Categories 55
Nicolai J. Foss
Individual Utility Depends Only on Absolute Consumption 57
Robert Frank
The Relative Price Effect Explains Behavior 59
Bruno S. Frey
The Precedence of Exchange over Production 61
Jetta Frost
Contents ix
Inequality Reduces Growth
Clemens Fuest
Contingent Valuation, Willingness to Pay, and Willingness 63
to Accept
Victor Ginsburgh 65
Governments Must Reduce Budget Deficits
Michael Graff 67
Reach for Your Dream
Allan Guggenbühl 69
The EU’s Competiveness Authority Beat Gygi 71
Say’s Law
Jochen Hartwig 73
Boundedness of Rationality Jürg Helbling 75
Rational Expectations David F. Hendry 77
Letting Insolvent Banks Fail Gerard Hertig 79
Pleasantville Politics: Selecting Politicians According to Ability Bruno Heyndels 81
The Axioms of Revealed Preference John Kay
There Ain’t No Such Thing as a Free Lunch: 83
The Myth of Expansionary Consolidations
Gebhard Kirchga€ssner 85
Government Hurts the Economy More Than It Helps
Margaret Levi 87
The Motivated Armchair Approach to Preferences
Siegwart Lindenberg 89
Economics Is Based on Scientific Methods 91
Michael McAleer
Contents
The Death of DistancePeter Nijkamp 93
Dump the Concept of Rationality Into the Deep OceanKarl-Dieter Opp 95
Pay for Performance Raises PerformanceMargit Osterloh 97
Home Ownership Is GoodAndrew J. Oswald 99
Coase TheoremEric A. Posner 101
Poverty Is Good for DevelopmentMartin Ravallion 105
Markets Are EfficientJean-Charles Rochet 107
CEOs Are Paid for TalentKatja Rost 109
The Efficiency-Equity TradeoffJeffrey D. Sachs 111
Deterministic Trend of InequalityChristoph A. Schaltegger 115
Quantitative EasingKurt Schiltknecht 117
Hosting the Olympic GamesSascha L. Schmidt 119
Abolishing Cash as Solution Against the EvilFriedrich Schneider 121
Receiving Money and Not Having to Work Raises HappinessRonnie Schöb 125
Saints in Public OfficeGerhard Schwarz 127
Helicopter MoneyHans-Werner Sinn 129
Contents xi
Decisions Are Deterministic Didier Sornette 131
Politicians Systematically Converge to the Median Voter David Stadelmann 133
Artists Are Poor and thus Unhappy
Lasse Steiner
Returns on Educational Investments Are Highest for Early 135
Childhood Interventions Elsbeth Stern 137
EU Centralization Armin Steuernagel 139
The Alleged Asymmetry in Maintaining a Fixed Exchange Rate Jan-Egbert Sturm 141
Governments Should Maximize the Happiness of the Population
Alois Stutzer 145
Okun’s Equality-Efficiency Trade-Off Mark Thoma 147
“A Rising Tide Raises All Boats”
David Throsby 149
Social Cost Analysis Robert D. Tollison 151
Natural Resources Make Rich Rick van der Ploeg 153
The Natural Rate of Interest Is Positive Carl Christian von Weizsa€cker 155
Europe’s “Skill Shortage” Joachim Voth 157
Taxes Are Paid Because of Expected Punishment Hannelore Weck-Hannemann 159
Better Safe than Sorry 161
Antoinette Weibel
Contents
The End of Work 163
Boris Zürcher
Postscript 165
Bruno S. Frey and David Iselin
