
How Economists Rode Maths to Become Our Era's Astronomers - edran
https://aeon.co/essays/how-economists-rode-maths-to-become-our-era-s-astrologers
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nabla9
I'm not an economist, but I'm currently studying economics as a hobby.

It's very hard to start debunking this myth perpetuated by Alan Jay Levinovitz
because there is so many layers of math envy, overgeneralization,
misunderstanding and misinformation.

Firstly, he is arguing mostly against finance sector, not against academic
economics. We should make clear separation between money making economics
where economists working in fiance sector for profits. Finance sector is large
part of marketing funds and strategies and mathiness is good way to sell.
Academic research shows that it's very hard to beat index in long term and you
should be very skeptical. Secondly, we should separate economic policies,
economic politics from academic economics.

Economics uses math and models as way of thinking. There are no economic
models that capture all important variables, but modeling is the only way to
see trough ideologies and have good discussions. Economics can do what
Levinovitz wants it to do only if it becomes psychohistory in Isaac Asimov's
Foundation universe.

For a good example of how current top 10 cited economist used math and models
well, look at the work of Daron Acemoglu
[http://economics.mit.edu/faculty/acemoglu/paper](http://economics.mit.edu/faculty/acemoglu/paper)

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MaysonL
Astrologers!

