Comments for A Fine Theorem

Comment on “Railroads of the Raj: Estimating the Impact of Transportation Infrastructure,” D. Donaldson (2013) by Anon

Anon — Thu, 09 May 2013 22:11:05 +0000

“Theory is meant to be used, not tested.”

That is a hilarious statement.

*Assumptions* are meant to be used. No point developing a theory if all you’re going to do is assume whatever you want.

Comment on “Railroads of the Raj: Estimating the Impact of Transportation Infrastructure,” D. Donaldson (2013) by saadgulzar

saadgulzar — Sun, 05 May 2013 15:23:29 +0000

Reblogged this on Saad Gulzar and commented: As someone who has spent time trying to retrieve railway data in Pakistan, I really appreciate this effort!

Comment on “The Axiomatic Structure of Empirical Content,” C. Chambers, F. Echenique & E. Shmaya (2013) by Daniel

Daniel — Thu, 02 May 2013 09:55:26 +0000

Nice summary as always. I am amazed that the paper does not mention Hempel because he pointed out the same distinction between falsifiable and not falsifiable statements (although he did it as a critique to Popper). For instance, all metals melt at a given temperature cannot be falsified (for each x there is a y) but it is a valid scientific statement.

Comment on “An Elementary Theory of Comparative Advantage,” A. Costinot (2009) by jdingel

jdingel — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 16:25:07 +0000

No problem.

I should mention that I very much enjoy your blog and am happy to see more trade coverage.

Comment on “An Elementary Theory of Comparative Advantage,” A. Costinot (2009) by afinetheorem

afinetheorem — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 16:09:20 +0000

Corrected – thanks!

Comment on “An Elementary Theory of Comparative Advantage,” A. Costinot (2009) by Trade Diversion (@TradeDiversion)

Trade Diversion (@TradeDiversion) — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 12:59:23 +0000

Econometrica. It’s a 2009 Econometrica.

Comment on “The First Property Rights Revolution,” S. Bowles and J-K. Choi (2002) by Hugh Sansom

Hugh Sansom — Sun, 24 Mar 2013 23:52:04 +0000

Only just came on this post while googling “property rights revolution”. Largely agreed about Bowles. He and Herbert Gintis were definitely denied tenure at Harbard because of their Marxist thinking. The economics department had strongly supported tenure for them; the university’s administration nixed it. John Kenneth Galbraith wrote about it somewhere, saying that he almost left the school. Wassily Leontief and another who later won the Nobel prize did leave. Bowles and Gintis went on to make UMass Amherst the leading progressive economics department.

I’d say Bowles’s earlier work shows a far clearer inclination toward genuinely progressive thought. These days, he can even sound conservative (from my perspective), especially when on issues of evolutionary psychology and the evolution of economic behavior.

Comment on “The Economic Benefits of Pharmaceutical Innovations: The Case of Cox-2 Inhibitors,” C. Garthwaite (2012) by Fred Thompson

Fred Thompson — Sat, 23 Mar 2013 03:45:24 +0000

Sounds like double counting to me.

Comment on “Promoting School Competition Through School Choice: A Market Design Approach,” J.W. Hatfield, F. Kojima & Y. Narita (2011) by diplodocuscoffeespot

diplodocuscoffeespot — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 14:48:06 +0000

Apologies for the rant, but I do enjoy your blog.

Comment on “Promoting School Competition Through School Choice: A Market Design Approach,” J.W. Hatfield, F. Kojima & Y. Narita (2011) by diplodocuscoffeespot

diplodocuscoffeespot — Fri, 22 Feb 2013 14:45:41 +0000

I still do not understand what is wrong with gaming the system. To a certain degree, people in a first price auction are “gaming the system” by shading their valuations. However, they are still revealing their underlying preferences (thinking here of course of a symmetric environment with private values). In addition, there is no evidence that gaming the system actually makes people worse off. In particular, there are few studies on how well real systems actually work, other than theoretical comparisons of real world mechanisms to the DA mechanism. It would be good to see some real empirics on this topic.