Only the finest analysis from the Grey Lady (boldface mine):
Here is an overarching theory of what we might have missed in the march toward a hyper-efficient global economy: Economic efficiency isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
Efficiency sounds great in theory. What kind of monster doesn’t want to optimize possibilities, minimize waste and make the most of finite resources? But the economic and policy elite may like efficiency a lot more than normal humans do.
Maybe the people who run the world, in other words, have spent decades pursuing goals that don’t scratch the itches of large swaths of humanity. Perhaps the pursuit of ever higher gross domestic product misses a fundamental understanding of what makes most people tick. Against that backdrop, support for Mr. Trump and for the British withdrawal known as Brexit are just imperfect vehicles through which someone can yell, “Stop.”
…For example, economists almost uniformly argue that rent control laws are a terrible tool to try to make housing more affordable. As Paul Krugman once wrote, “the analysis of rent control is among the best-understood issues in all of economics, and — among economists, anyway — one of the least controversial.”
…It’s easy for an economist to chalk up support for rent control as idiocy that depresses the home construction that might reduce housing prices for everyone. I have thought of it that way.
But maybe it is really important for people who live in a place to be able to stay there indefinitely. Maybe the idea that things should stay the way they are, without new people moving in and new buildings going up, is not as inherently irrational as Economics 101 would suggest. Yes, rent control is a bad idea if you’re worried about the long-term prospects for economic efficiency. But maybe the people who advocate these policies know exactly what they’re rooting for, and that’s not it.
I don’t know what’s worse: that someone can make a living stating the obvious–not everyone shares the same goals (i.e., the normative), or that parts of my Twitter feed think this is a scintillating insight.
Just how far into one’s own bubble do you have to be?
Is our pundits learning?
mikethemadbiologist
OhmyGERSH!!
Humans might not be simple economic rationality engines?!?
This CANNOT BE!!!
The more I learn about Economics, the more sense Astrology makes. The professionals who reach into the mass of economic data to draw a (preconceived) notion are not so very diffent from those proverbial preachers who “reached into the Old Testament for anything they wanted”, generally a stick to beat someone with.
Is our pundits learning?
Not exactly grammatical, (IS?) but the overall answer is likely no. Economists believe in theories, facts are just an annoying distraction.
Check out the “10-Year Treasury Rates and Historical Economist Forecasts” chart here – https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2015/07/14/decline-long-term-interest-rates
It could be retitled “Your Model Sucks: Evidence of Refusal to Learn Anything from Data”