Saturday, October 06, 2007

What's in a Name?

Over at MR, guest Justin Wolfers wonders if "autistic" is a good insult to apply to economists.

Meanwhile, at The Austrian Economists, my friend Pete Boettke wonders how his readers can so vociferously debate the use and ownership of the title "Austrian".

And Dani Rodrik, courtesy of Barkley Rosser, has decided that he is a "non-orthodox mainstream economist".


Let me just state for the record that me and Mungowitz score very low on empathy tests, are not Austrian economists and prefer the label "non-mainstream orthodox economists" to apply to our scholarly endeavors.

Is this a great profession or what?

5 comments:

Shawn said...

...if either of you are religious, and especially if you're protestant, how do your attitudes on names w/in your profession compare with your attitudes on denominational monikers?

also, if there's a version that I'll understand, why aren't you austrian, apart from the, I assume, lack of general problem with the fed/fiat money?

Angus said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Angus said...

I'm friends with tons of them guys, but I part company with the Austrians on economic methodology. I like to run regressions and believe the world is basically ergodic (and I don't think they would have me).

Shawn said...

...not yet to the point where I'd understand that. :)

Took a practice GRE today...thinking of getting back to school...maybe I'll be able to have a numbers discussion one day.

Angus said...

I believe that statistical regularities found in historical data can be used to make inferences, test theories, and in some cases at least, even predict future outcomes. I believe the underlying set of mechanisms in the world that generate data are fairly stable.