Author Archives: Diane Coyle

Physics envy?

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There’s a new book causing a stir in the physics community, Lee Smolin’s [amazon_link id=”1846142997″ target=”_blank” ]Time Reborn: From the Crisis in Physics to the Future of the Universe[/amazon_link]. It was reviewed at the weekend by, among others, Gillian Tett in the FT.  She writes: “Smolin, who has worked for several decades at the cutting edge of cosmology, conducting research into areas such as quantum gravity and string theory, argues that it is a mistake to view scientific laws as universal. Rather, they are “path-dependent”, or a function of what occurred before.” As she points out, mid-20th century economics drew on physics, attracted by the scientific rigour of its discoveries. How wonderful it would be to derive precise ‘laws of economics’. Economists are notoriously charged with ‘physics envy’.

[amazon_image id=”1846142997″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Time Reborn: From the Crisis of Physics to the Future of the Universe[/amazon_image]

However, it would be physics envy to conclude that economics now needs historical context and path dependency just because a top physicist has written a book discovering the contingency, the historical specificity of events. In her review, Tett concludes: “Economies do not have a “natural balance”; nor do they operate according to timeless “rules”.” But many economists have been there for a while. Some – like the redoubtable Paul Ormerod in books like [amazon_link id=”0571220134″ target=”_blank” ]Why Most Things Fail[/amazon_link] – never stopped arguing that economics is an intrinsically disequilibrium subject, putting dynamic behaviour over time in specific contexts right at centre stage. Older works like Malinvaud’s [amazon_link id=”0470268832″ target=”_blank” ]Theory of Unemployment Reconsidered[/amazon_link], or, famously, Minsky’s  [amazon_link id=”0071592997″ target=”_blank” ]Stablizing an Unstable Economy[/amazon_link]  were disequilibrium theories. Evolutionary economics, albeit always a minority sport, is inherently about dynamics.

I don’t think the concept of equilibrium should be wholly discarded; it can be a useful analytical tool to understand the dynamics of the economy. But on the whole, I don’t think economics needs another phase of physics envy. The subject is already well on the way to rediscovering the importance of time and place.

 

 

Wisdom of crowds

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There’s a long feature in the FT today about the Italian writing collective Wu Ming, Wu Ming’s Magical History Tour, pegged to the English publication of their latest book [amazon_link id=”1781680760″ target=”_blank” ]Altai[/amazon_link]. It’s worth signing up for your free quota of FT articles to read it, if you’re a non-subscriber.

[amazon_image id=”1781680760″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Altai: A Novel[/amazon_image]

The article paints the new novel as a kind of sequel to 1999’s [amazon_link id=”0099439832″ target=”_blank” ]Q[/amazon_link] by Luther Blisset (more or less the same group of people). Both are set in the turmoil of 16th century Europe. Asked why this period, “The 16th century was the foundation of modernity,” replies Wu Ming 4, “of the state, of capitalism, of the idea of the clash of civilisations.”

[amazon_image id=”0099439832″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Q[/amazon_image]

It doesn’t touch on the intervening [amazon_link id=”0099472333″ target=”_blank” ]54[/amazon_link], set in post-World War 2 and dawn-of-cold-War Italy, and speaking even more directly to the conflicts of our own times, and the dreams and nightmares of 20th century idealism.

[amazon_image id=”0434012939″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]’54[/amazon_image]

You have to surrender yourselves to these novels, which defy succinct summaries of plot or meaning. But I loved the first two, which stimulated me to have ideas, make connections, think about surprising conjunctures. I like the style of the collective as well – although I don’t read Italian, they have a blog that looks rather provocative – from what I can glean, they think ‘a plague on all your houses’ about Italian politics, including the Five Star Movement. But then, so do many people think about their politicians in many countries…..

I’ll definitely be reading Altai.

The humility of economists*

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In the course of working on a forthcoming lecture, I’ve been dipping back into James Scott’s superb 1998 book [amazon_link id=”0300078153″ target=”_blank” ]Seeing Like A State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed[/amazon_link].

The book describes the catastrophic consequences of a number of idealistic grand schemes of the 20th century, including Soviet collectivization and Tanzanian ‘villagization’. In the conclusion, Scott focuses on the common theme of the failure to take account of the radical uncertainty of the future.

“Social and historical analyses have, almost invariably, the effect of diminishing the contingency of human affairs,” he writes. “A historical event or state of affairs simply is the way it is, often appearing determined and necessary when in fact it might easily have turned out otherwise.” He offers policymakers some rules of thumb:

1. Take small steps – and stand back and observe in between each.

2. Favour reversibility. “Irreversible interventions have irreversible consequences.”

3. Expect surprises.

4. Plan on human inventiveness. “What is perhaps most striking about all the high modernist schemes is how little confidence they repose in the skills, intelligence and experience of ordinary people.” The less is ‘left to chance’, the less room for local experience and knowledge.

He doesn’t spell out the conclusions for social scientists, but the main one I take from the book is: be extremely cautious about assigning causality. Or in other words, be far, far humbler about what we know than is typical. A lot of economic analysis suffers from the same high modernist blinkers as the disastrous social engineering described in the book.

* Spot the irony – just in case you hadn’t

[amazon_image id=”0300078153″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed (Yale Agrarian Studies)[/amazon_image]

Filthy rich bankers

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“Entrepreneurship in the barbaric wastes furthest from state power is a fraught endeavour, a constant battle, a case of kill or be killed, with little guarantee of success. 

No, harnessing the state’s might for personal gain is a much more sensible approach. Two related categories of actors have long understood this. Bureaucrats, who wear state uniforms while secretly backing their private interests. And bankers, who wear private uniforms while secretly being backed by the state.”

Spot-on political economy from Mohsin Hamid in [amazon_link id=”0241144663″ target=”_blank” ]How To Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia,[/amazon_link] an excellent, funny and moving novel. It was perfect for my flight, and associated delays, today.

[amazon_image id=”0241144663″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]How To Get Filthy Rich In Rising Asia[/amazon_image]

Learned ignorance

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“Besides the imperfection that is naturally in language, and the obscurity and confusion that is so hard to be avoided in the use of words, there are several wilfull faults and neglects, which men are guilty of…. [T]he first and most palpable abuse, is the using of words, without clear and distinct ideas…. [T]his artificial ignorance, and learned gibberish, prevailed mightily in these last ages, by the interest and artifice of those, who found no easier way to that pitch of authority and dominion they have attained, than by amusing the men of business, and the ignorant, with hard words, or employing the ingenious and the idle in intricate disputes about unintelligible terms, and holding them perpetually entangled in that endless labyrinth.

There is no such way to gain admittance or give defence to strange and absurd doctrines, as to guard them round with legions of obscure, doubtful and undefined words….Thus learned ignorance hath been propagated in the world.”

[amazon_link id=”0141043873″ target=”_blank” ]John Locke[/amazon_link] could have been reading in almost any modern academic discipline, or listening to pretty much any financial pundit.

[amazon_image id=”0141043873″ link=”true” target=”_blank” size=”medium” ]Of the Abuse of Words (Penguin Great Ideas)[/amazon_image]