
Nobel Laureates Aim Too Low on Global Poverty - jriot
https://www.wsj.com/articles/nobel-laureates-aim-too-low-on-global-poverty-11571093795?mod=rsswn
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duxut_staglatz
The argument of this article is strange.

The "randomista" revolution essentially states that we know (or knew) very
little about what actually work to foster development and that RCTs are the
best tool we have to obtain this knowledge. Macro-scale policies are
important, but we have no tool to evaluate their effects appropriately.

The article essentially says that this approach is wrong because we know that
some macro-scale policies will have a much bigger impact than all those micro
interventions. In this case, reducing barriers to immigration.

But we do not know that, that's the whole point of doing RCTs in the first
place.

You can make an argument that we should spend less time focusing on micro
scale interventions and more on macro-scale interventions because the former
will never have a large impact and thus the best way to foster development is
finding which macro intervention work.

However saying that focusing on the micro scale is useless because we
_already_ know about some macro intervention that work better than the micro
ones is unfounded. The evidence on macro intervention is much, much weaker
than the evidence from RCTs.

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scottlocklin
It's worth pointing out that economics is a fake "Nobel" prize, funded not by
the Alfred Nobel foundation, but by a Swedish bank trying to cash in on the
name recognition.

Economics is almost entirely ideology accompanied by linear regression, and
should be ignored or at least laughed at by numerate people.

~~~
cynicalkane
The Nobel Foundation recognizes the economics prize as a Nobel prize.

So, yes, it is a Nobel prize because the guys in charge of Nobel prizes say it
is. It's also awarded by the guys who award the other Nobel science prizes
(the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences).

~~~
bentona
It is my understanding that out of respect for the original establishment of
the prize, they haven't amended it as an "official" prize, but have
essentially fully adopted it - it's just a matter of economics not being much
of a discipline when the prize was originally established, no?

~~~
mercutio2
Oh, it’s more than lack of familiarity.

‘“Nobel despised people who cared more about profits than society's well-
being", saying that "There is nothing to indicate that he would have wanted
such a prize", and that the association with the Nobel prizes is "a PR coup by
economists to improve their reputation".’ [0]

I’ve also heard rumors that Nobel had a personal animosity towards certain
academic areas because of an affair his wife had with a professor, but I can’t
find any good references for that.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Memorial_Prize_in_Econom...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Memorial_Prize_in_Economic_Sciences)

~~~
scottlocklin
I'm pretty sure the latter is as you intimate, incorrect[0]. If it was
correct, it apparently pertained to Mittag-Leffler, who is a very admirable
human (with an amazing mustache) who was unfairly more or less forgotten[1]
outside of complex analysis class.

The fact that the "economics Nobel" isn't a real one, of course, is
indisputable[2].

[0]
[http://almaz.com/nobel/why_no_math.html](http://almaz.com/nobel/why_no_math.html)

[1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6sta_Mittag-
Leffler](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6sta_Mittag-Leffler)

[2] for example
[https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/oct/11/nobel-...](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/oct/11/nobel-
prize-economics-not-science-hubris-disaster)

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yboris
Immigration is an easy win for significantly reducing global poverty.

In a classic _Economics and Emigration: Trillion-Dollar Bills on the
Sidewalk?_ Michael Clemens argues that it would be a win-win-win scenario to
open up our borders.

[https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdf/10.1257/jep.25.3.83](https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdf/10.1257/jep.25.3.83)

~~~
tonyedgecombe
The political reaction to it means it's far from "easy".

~~~
chrchang523
More importantly, the comparative lack of political resistance to the policy
package facilitating e.g. India and Indonesia growing at ~6% a year for the
last 20 years means that we already have a better way of bringing about mass
catchup. Perhaps the biggest geopolitical question of the moment is whether we
did too good a job of facilitating China’s rise...

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Gimpei
The problem with focusing on big questions in economics is that it is very
difficult to produce convincing evidence. Humanity is complicated and it is
impossible to control for unobservables in cross country studies.

The Nobel winners see this and decided to focus on smaller, provable questions
instead. I'm not saying RCTs are perfect, but they are much better than a lot
of the snake oil that still comes out of the discipline. We need more of them,
not less.

~~~
raxxorrax
Wholeheartedly agree. I think the discipline in general has something to
prove. For economists, it shouldn't be an alien concept to actually produce
results and hard data. These particular people have done their part and more.
But I feel this price is used to absolve the whole industry.

I already hear the open borders arguments again. No, if an underdeveloped
nations completely opens up for trade, its domestic economy will get
destroyed. And China should be the falsification of that theory anyway.

People lift themselves from poverty. Not by easily bored economists from the
developed world and their insights. So don't let them experiment with your
society too much.

Why is immigration good for developed countries? Maybe because you simply
catch motivated individuals that have the means to migrate?

Think this comment sounds a bit hostile to the discipline? I think you would
be correct.

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kauffj
[http://archive.is/CAIBq](http://archive.is/CAIBq)

(Archive link for those who prefer non-broken web experiences)

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bentona
I know that hacker news usually stays away from paywalled articles - do enough
people have subscriptions to WSJ that this isn't an issue here?

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eaenki
The human race has gone downhill since the 60s. No more Apollos Or Manhattans
projects. This is just another example of the last 70 years culture. Taboos,
abstractions, political correctness, pessimism and escapism are the symptoms
of a sad era.

~~~
keeganjw
Oh yes, the 60s, when racism was still written into law, the Vietnam War was
raging, and the world was on the brink of nuclear apocalypse but hey, at least
we went to the moon.

~~~
vkou
The Syrian war (an echo of the Iraq war) is still raging, and the world is
still every day on the brink of nuclear apocalypse (With a longer-term,
slower, climate apocalypse looming in the distance.)

I don't care about the Moon, and besides it, the problems in 2019 aren't much
different.

