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Revision as of 18:52, 3 November 2006

Radek Sz

Home Army and V1 and V2

Good job on this article. You may want to link it from other, relevant articles - I just added a releavant link to Armia Krajowa article, I am sure you can think of others. So far, it is not linked from many articles, see this. I look forward to your other additions. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus 20:32, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

Comments at game theory

Thanks for all your comments at Talk:Game theory! Since you seem knowledgable about the area I thought you might be interested in joining us at Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Game theory. We use the WikiProject to organize work on game theory articles. Feel free to add yourself to the list of participants, if you like. Also add anything to the list of things to do or work on any of the projects you would like. Thanks again! --best, kevin 08:53, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

I'm glad you could join us. Welcome! If you need anything, feel free to ask. --best, kevin 06:15, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

Economist

Think the list of economists should be alphabetized by last name instead of first?

Also, you might want to have a look at Microeconomics. It's a mess—desperately in need of an overhaul. dbtfz 08:00, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

Let me know if you need some help with Microeconomics. I don't have any real expertise on the topic, but I'm interested. dbtfz 08:40, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

JEL classifications

Are you the same radek who comments at Crooked Timber. In any case, you seem well-informed, so I thought I'd pitch this idea at you. I think there's a good case for adopting the JEL classification system to define categories in economics. I'm not sure, though, how to implement this, or even how to go about getting some sort of consensus. Any ideas? JQ 09:50, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Hi. I've run into some minor problems with this. We need a Category:Accounting for the subfield of economics. But some people want to delete it and make it Category:Accountancy which I think is silly. If you agree, maybe you could join the discussion at Misplaced Pages:Categories for deletion/Log/2006 August 19.JQ 20:09, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Welcome

since nobody else did it, welcome to Misplaced Pages, thanks for reverting the vandalism on the Macroeconomics page, it's much appreciated --«Θ» zeerus 18:11, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

Steve Keen

Hi there,

Just wanted to check, how to agree on a neutral version of the artcile on Steve Keen. I think the article is OK, the way it is now, except for the second paragraph. My suggesttions:

1. This part: "A "proof" can be found here: http://www.debunking-economics.com/Size/mc_eq_p.htm" has a wrong link. The correct link is: http://www.debunking-economics.com/Maths/size.htm.

2. That previous link is in fact a proof (also published in the leading physics journal Physica A). So we should write "A proof can be found ..." and drop the quotation marks around the word proof.

3. Therefore we should also rephrase the following and state, that "Economists still believe that if one firm reduces it's quantity total supply will fall". (This is wrong, as is proven above, but I would agree to give this argument.).

4. It is actually the work from Eiteman & Guthrie, not Alan Blinder, which established the 89%-result for real firms, so we should replace Alan Blinder with the fully referenced article of Eiteman & Guthrie (1952).

Can we agree on this?

Regards, Aleksandar I. Ivanov 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Aleksander, I will reply here because I don't know where your talk page is. Ok, with regards to changing the relevant links, it is of course an improvement (in regards to 1. and 2.) In particular referencing Eiteman & Guthrie rather than Blinder - though if I remember correctly Blinder also did empirical work on the subject matter though I don't know if he is the one actually cited by Keen. However, as far as this "proof" goes... well, it is a "proof" but it is a wrong proof. A good analogy would be with someone who claims to have provided a "simple proof of Fermat's last theorem" - it looks deceptively correct but it's not. The mistake in the Keen paper is that "price-taking" means "price-taking" hence the second derivative in that equation is zero so it still reduces price equal marginal cost. If you read the Keen paper and look up the reference to Stigler you'll see that what Stigler is actually talking about is a Cournot market not a perfectly competitive market but somehow Keen completly ignores this. The "proof" is just wrong there's no two ways about it. I don't know much about Physica A, it seems to be a Physics and Math journal, which means that while probably quite competent in those fields its editors are probably unfamiliar with economics and so Keen could succesfuly get this sleight-of-hand past them. No serious economic journal (and this is simple math which economists know as well as any Physicist) accepted the paper and American Economic Review rejected it with a barely-contained embarrasment (that someone would actually think of submitting this nonsense) - the referee review used to be on Keen's site but he took it down. So I think "Keen claims to have proven" is much more NPOV than "Keen has proved" (the accurate version would actually be "Keen has mistakenly claimed to have proven"). So #3 is not wrong. Think of integrating a function over an interval. If you increase the value of that function at just one point (ie. just one firm raises its output) the value of the integral (total market output) doesn't change. This is one characterization of a perfectly competitive market. Even if there isn't a continuum of firms, what matters is not that output changes with respect to choices of any one firm but rather that each firm ACTS (ie. the way it carries out its maximization problem, by definition) as if it didn't - because it is so small relative to the whole market.radek 01:54, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

Dear Radek,

thank you for your comments. I also got a Talk page, so you can reply there now. My user name ist AlexIvanov2.

I believe that we can soon settle the last point of disagreement - the proof on price-taking in the theory of competition. You asserted that, "price-taking means price-taking" so the second derivative should be zero (see your last comment on your talk page). The next assumption in the theory is that: change of output by one firm, does not affect price. Because this is so, the individual demand curve of a firm, p(Q), must be a horizontal line at the market price (price-taking). On the other hand, the market demand curve P(Q) is supposed to be downward sloping. P(Q) is the sum of all the individual p(Q)'s. But since they are all horizontal lines at market price (according to the assumptions), it is impossible for their sum to have a different slope. So the total demand curve (market demand) must be just as flat (slope = 0). But then in the neoclassical proof a downward sloping market demand is still used.

Why does this situation arise? The reason for this is, that the neoclassical theory of perfect competion has inconsisten assumptions, i. e. assumptions which are logically incompatible. That's what the Keen paper in Physica A is arguing. However, the prrof in Physica A is very high level and short, because of the usual restrictions on journal articles. So if you like, you can check out the full argument including proofs here: A few slides on the topic from a recent presentation of Prof. Keen at City University of New York.

Just as an acompanying reading note: The key inconsistent assumtions are that a change in one very small firm's output means zeor change at the global level. This is impossible by the fundamental axioms of mathematics, specifically the Axioms of Peano on Counting.

I know it will be hard to digest, but it is a matter of fact, that neoclassical theory has a lot of fallacies, and the one we're talking about is just one of them.

Please let me know, what you think.

Best regards, Alex

PS: About the Physica A journal: This is the world-leading journal for Statistical Mechanics and it's applications. During the last decade it has evolved into one of the key journals for Econophysicists. So the people their know Economics just as well as Maths. On average they have at least four Social Science articles per issue, usually on fairly advanced topics, but also on general issues, like this one.

Alex, the link to your talk page doesn't seem to work. BTW I perfectly understand what Keen is saying so there's no need to repeatedly explain it to me. He's still wrong though. radek 02:42, 2 November 2006 (UTC)

Radek, try again, this link to my talk page should work now. Curious about your comments. Al, 3 November 2006 (UTC) PS: The last change in the article is not mine (although I totally support it).