dissabte, 17 de març del 2018

Economics for the Common Good J.T.


Economics for good

"Para los no iniciados que tengan un interés genuino en lo que es la Economía, qué hacen los economistas y cómo pueden contribuir (y contribuyen) a la formulación de políticas económicas que mejoran el bienestar social, recomiendo “La Economía del bien común” de Jean Tirole" Juan Francisco Jimeno Doctor en Economía por MIT, 1990


Jean Tirole’s book Economics for the Common Good is out now and is highly recommended. As I had the privilege of helping prepare the English edition, I’ve read it with careful attention, and most appreciated Tirole’s ability to crystallise complicated issues in a straightforward way, combining surgical analysis with very clear explanation. This is too rare a skill among economists.
The first part of the book concerns the influence of economics and economists on society and the role of the market, followed by a section on what doing (good) economics involves, and also how economics is changing. There are then two chapters on organisation, the first on the relationship between state and market, the second on the role of business. These sections are in the same spirit as Dani Rodrik’s Economics Rules, although their experiences and examples differ. Here in Economics for the Common Good is an economist at the pinnacle of the profession (Tirole won the 2014 Nobel prize) giving a thoughtful, reflective account of what economics can properly contribute to – well, the common good. Although much of his work is highly technical, he has always been concerned with its application to practical challenges in organising society: “Academics must ..collectively aim to make the world a better place; consequently, they cannot refuse, as a matter of principle, to take some interest in public affairs.” If an economist has appropriate professional competence in some area, she has an obligation to take a position on it – while acknowledging that what is known changes and re-evaluation may always be necessary.

The final two sections of the book turn to applications of economics, big macroeconomic questions such as financial market stability or tackling climate change, and then applied microeconomic issues such as competition policy, digital platforms, intellectual property and the regulation of network industries. Given my own interests, this final section was riveting. No other individual economist has done more than Tirole to take forward the economic analysis of these kinds of areas, incorporating issues of asymmetric information, principal-agent problems, incentive compatibility, and so on. The final chapter, on sector regulation, is a must-read for anyone interested in this area. (I drew on it in a recent FT column.)

The book is non-technical, aimed at the general reader, and packed with examples. It does in parts require a careful read, but each sections and chapters stands being read alone, so one can dip into the book. There’s a nice publisher blog post in which Tirole explains his motivation for writing the book and what he hopes it can achieve.

It ends with an epilogue reflecting on the status of technical knowledge in a time of populism (the French edition was published early enoug in 2016 that it feels like a different era), and the even greater responsibility economists have to engage and communicate – “Economists must … with humility and conviction, harness economics for the common good.”

  • http://www.enlightenmenteconomics.com/blog/index.php/2017/10/economics-for-good/

Jean Tirole on Economics for the Common Good

When Jean Tirole won the 2014 Nobel Prize in Economics, he suddenly found himself being stopped in the street by complete strangers and asked to comment on issues of the day, no matter how distant from his own areas of research. His transformation from academic economist to public intellectual prompted him to reflect further on the role economists and their discipline play in society. The result is Economics for the Common Good, a passionate manifesto for a world in which economics, far from being a “dismal science,” is a positive force for the common good.

What inspired you to write this book, and what did you learn in the process?
I wanted to show how economics can open a window to the world. I have long taken part in policymaking, conversing with private and public decision-makers, but as yet I had never engaged with the wider public.  After receiving the Nobel Prize I was regularly asked by people I met in the street or as I gave talks to explain to a broader audience the nature of economic research and what it contributes to our well-being. Not as a commentator on each and every topic, but simply to share with the public how scientific knowledge can guide economic policies and help us understand the world we (will) live in. I tried to write a book that is intelligible for any intellectually curious reader even with no or slight knowledge of economics. The book is divided into 17 stand-alone chapters so the reader can pick and choose.

Can you talk a bit about the value of making economic ideas comprehensible to a general audience?
Repeatedly blaming politicians for flawed policies won’t get us very far. Like us all, they respond to the incentives they face, in their case the hope of being (re)elected. Very rarely do they go against majoritarian public opinion. So we, citizens, get the policies we deserve. And as I explain in the book, our understanding of economic phenomena is obfuscated by various cognitive biases; we are dependent on rules of thumb and narratives, and we often believe what we want to believe, see what we want to see. Economics acts as a deciphering key, although it of course has its own shortcomings
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In the book you talk about economics for the common good. What exactly is “the common good?”
Economics for the Common Good is an ambition: to help our institutions serve general interest by studying those situations in which individual motives conflict with the interests of society, in order to suggest policies that align social and private interests. The invisible and the visible hands—the market and the State—are mutually complementary; to function well a market economy needs an efficient State to correct its failures. But sometimes the State does not work for the Common Good; for example, many countries are leaving their children substantial levels of unfunded public debt, unemployment, a degraded educational system, inequality, and a lack of preparation for the digital upheaval that our societies are on the brink of encountering. And the world does little to contain climate change. The book therefore pays particular attention to what is going wrong with governments and how this can be remedied to promote the Common Good.

Why do economists have a reputation as “scaremongers?”
I have already mentioned our cognitive biases. Economics is accessible, but can be counterintuitive if one stops at first impressions. Accordingly, and as I illustrate in the book though housing, labor market, climate and other public policies, the road to economic hell is often paved with good intentions. Public policies—the reflection of the electorate’s beliefs—too often ignore side effects. Contrary to general opinion, these side effects are usually borne by third parties rather than the beneficiaries of the policies. Economists, when pointing to the indirect harm on mostly invisible victims (e.g. those who don’t find a job or decent housing, or the taxpayers), are often accused of lacking empathy for the intended and very visible beneficiaries.
Economists may also be the bearers of bad news; while the classical economics representation of a society of purely self-interested individuals is a mediocre description of reality (the book details how morality is privately and socially constructed), when economists mention the need for incentives they trigger anxiety and resistance; we would all rather live in a world of honest, hardworking and empathic citizens. To my mind, the whole point of economics is to design policies and institutions that work towards reaching this different world, where individuals spontaneously operate for the Common Good.

Economics has come under sharp attack, especially since the 2008 financial crisis. Is it a science?
Economists’ judgment may be impaired by financial conflicts of interest, political friendships, or ambitions to be a publicly recognized intellectual. But we must also be humble and accept that as a science, economics is an inexact one. Like any science, it is built on to-and-fro between theory, which provides a lens to the world and allows us to understand observations and describe their implications, and empirical work, which measures the importance of effects and helps question the theory: lab experiments need fieldwork, econometrics, big data. But our knowledge is imperfect; good data may be unavailable, theories may oversimplify, and behavioral patterns and self-fulfilling phenomena (such as bank runs or bubbles) may complicate the analysis. Overall, an economist will generally feel more comfortable analyzing past events and proposing future policies rather than forecasting. A characteristic that is incidentally shared by doctors and seismologists, who detect environments that are conducive to a heart attack or an earthquake and provide useful recommendations, and at the same time may be hard-pressed to predict the exact timing of the event or even whether the latter will occur at all.

Tirole 

Jean Tirole, the winner of the 2014 Nobel Prize in Economics, has been described as one of the most influential economists of our time. He is chairman of the Toulouse School of Economics and of the Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse and a visiting professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His many books include The Theory of Corporate Finance and Financial Crises, Liquidity, and the International Monetary System.



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