
Why Paul Romer Won the Nobel Prize in Economics - jeffreyrogers
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2018/10/paul-romer-won-nobel-prize-economics.html
======
vixen99
Romer has made some comments about open source with the specific example of
Jupyter and Mathematica.

" At a time when trust and truth are in retreat, the social dimension is the
one that matters. Jupyter rewards transparency; Mathematica rationalizes
secrecy. Jupyter encourages individual integrity; Mathematica lets individuals
hide behind corporate evasion. Jupyter exemplifies the social systems that
emerged from the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment, systems that
make it possible for people to cooperate by committing to objective truth;
Mathematica exemplifies the horde of new Vandals whose pursuit of private gain
threatens a far greater pubic loss–the collapse of social systems that took
centuries to build."

~~~
senthil_rajasek
An earlier discussion on Jupyter, Mathematica here on HN,
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16840692](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16840692)

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throw2016
Its surprising to see one of the most prominent critics of modern
macroeconomics getting a nobel. [1]

Till now egalitarian Sweden has made no secret of their love affair with
libertarian economists with 8 winning the prize. [2]

One would think the tide is finally turning after the banking crisis with
macro economists in deep introspection on dubious models, data and narratives
but just last week they were out in force demonizing Bernie Sanders amazon
bill.

1\.
[https://ccl.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/The%20Trouble...](https://ccl.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/The%20Trouble%20with%20Macroeconomics.pdf)

2\.
[https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/10/nobel-f...](https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/10/nobel-
factor-offer-soderberg/503186/)

~~~
saosebastiao
The funny thing about macroeconomics is that everybody is a critic of it for
different reasons. Non-economists might hate it because it tells them things
that they find paradoxical or hard to swallow. Microeconomists might criticize
it because it lacks empirical rigor and the economy as a whole is intractably
complex to model simplistically.

Even macroeconomists criticize it. Why? Because it's a field that is
legitimately hard to research and understand due to its complex nature and
chaotic feedback loops. It gets manipulated by politicians seeking authority
for their half-baked ideas. And people discredit the entire profession because
they focus way too much on controversial political hotbuttons like business
cycle theory, and subsequently use that criticism as a justification for
ignoring research that is sound and has broad consensus even among academics
of wildly differing ideologies. Their job sucks, and they know it.

~~~
Gibbon1
My two points are.

1\. A lot of soft hard to quantify schools of thought went totally off the
rails after WWII in a head long rush to impose 'scientific rigor' by aping
physics. And to curry favor with the suddenly terrifying political theories of
the day.

2\. Martin Gardner has line that when supporting evidence in a field is weak
and opaque theory mimics the cultural biases of the scientists. "evidence in a
field is weak and opaque" fits economics perfectly.

Put those two together is the conclusion is economics is mostly a huge pile of
stinking garbage. At best it's mostly irrelevant.

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savanaly
Have seen very little discussion or interest in this year's economics prize
compared to previous years'. Wonder why that is.

~~~
nonbel
>"Most importantly, Romer won the Prize for seeing how the non-rival nature of
ideas can boost ongoing and indeed “endogenous” economic growth. Romer also
showed mathematically that this process of growth is bounded, namely that it
does not explode without limit"

Is it common to assume economic growth can proceed at an infinite rate?

~~~
saosebastiao
Just to point out the misconception most people have here, that quote does not
imply that growth is not infinite. Take, for example, compound growth that
grows at a rate that declines over time asymptotically approaching 0%. That is
infinite growth even if returns decline over time.

It isn't just a hypothetical exercise. This sort of relationship with returns
over time is common in both economics and finance. I, for example, experience
it as a futures trader. It's not uncommon for successful day traders _who
intentionally limit their trading capital_ to get returns averaging 1% per
day. Those returns, however, are completely infeasible when talking about
trading capital even on the small end of mutual funds. When your trading
capital increases, it becomes much harder to grow at the same rate, and
returns rates diminish greatly. But they still may have positive returns.

No economist I know of would ever presume that growth can happen without limit
or diminishing returns. Reasonable economists will inevitably disagree on
parameterization of their models though, which is entirely to be expected.

~~~
nonbel
The quote refers to the "process of growth", which I took to refer to the rate
of growth rather than growth for an infinite amount of time.

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tooltalk
And he is a python programmer. Thomas Sargant another Nobel economist at NYU
is a rabid Julia fanbou.

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AtlasBarfed
The economics prize in honor of Alfred P. Nobel...

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oldgradstudent
He did not win the Nobel Prize in Economics because there is no such prize.

It's The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred
Nobel.

[http://exiledonline.com/the-nobel-prize-in-economics-
there-i...](http://exiledonline.com/the-nobel-prize-in-economics-there-is-no-
nobel-prize-in-economics/)

Just imagine the ridicule if instead of the Turing or Shannon awards we'd have
the ACM Prize in Computer Science in Memory of Alfred Nobel, or the IEEE Prize
in Electrical Engineering in Memory of Alfred Nobel.

BTW, here's a great paper by George Akerlof and Paul Romer who both won the
prize:
[http://pages.stern.nyu.edu/~promer/Looting.pdf](http://pages.stern.nyu.edu/~promer/Looting.pdf)

~~~
antidesitter
Is that a picture of Nobel laureate Friedrich Hayek with the word "fraud"
plastered over it? And what is the word "libertards" in the headline supposed
to mean?

> It's The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred
> Nobel.

Also known as the Nobel Prize in Economics, selected by the same institution
as the other prizes (the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences), announced at the
same time as the other prizes, awarded at the same ceremony as the other
prizes, and selected "in accordance with the rules governing the award of the
Nobel Prizes instituted through [Alfred Nobel's] will."

> Just imagine the ridicule if instead of the Turing or Shannon awards we'd
> have the ACM Prize in Computer Science in Memory of Alfred Nobel, or the
> IEEE Prize in Electrical Engineering in Memory of Alfred Nobel.

Why would that be ridiculous?

~~~
rfinney
fact check :

 _Also known as the Nobel Prize in Economics, selected by the same institution
as the other prizes (the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences) ..._

"Nobel Peace Prize" is selected by Norwegian government. ( see
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Peace_Prize](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Peace_Prize)
)

~~~
dagw
_" Nobel Peace Prize" is selected by Norwegian government._

Technically by an independent committee appointed by the Norwegian government.

