Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Economics

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Thanks. — Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 09:06, 15 March, 2009 (UTC)

Deflation

The Deflation article has been tagged for cleanup since 2006. Can someone take a look at it and make some comments on the talk page about what it needs? Thank you. RJFJR (talk) 16:36, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Talk:Economic surplus

Please see Talk:Economic surplus. Apparently, there are lots of university lecture notes that conflate the notions of producer's surplus and economic profit and consequently state that perfect competition drives producer's surplus to zero. I'm following David D. Friedman (Price Theory, Hidden Order), which clearly argues that producer's surplus should be imputed as a cost to the perfectly-competitive firm, but it would be good to find some more sources on this issue. --Classicalecon (talk) 16:00, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Faulty assumptions

This page needs to engage with critiques of the ontological and epistemological presuppositions of experimental economics. For example, experimental economics takes as given--as 'natural'--a particular understanding of individual behavior that should instead be regarded as constructed, or at least, historically contingent. Why should one believe in (take as given) the behavioral assumptions attributed to human individuals by experimental economics instead of regarding them as constructed and/or amplified or reinforced by the particular historically contingent contexts and institutions within which the individual is located? Using experimentation to verify presupposition doesn't prove that the essence of individual economic agents coheres to the presuppositions held by the experimenter. There is an element of circularity here. The institutional context within which individual economic agents exist shapes individual behavior. This behavior cannot be assumed to represent the essence of individuals (homo economicus) without rigorous comparison across varying (historical and cultural) institutional contexts across space and time. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.186.245.142 (talk) 07:46, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia is simply not a place for the active reform of economics. There are, meanwhile, various fora for the sort of discourse that you propose. —SlamDiego_←T 07:53, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Template:WikiProject Economics — Comments

What is the proper function (distinct from that of the Talk: page) of the /Comments page of which Template:WikiProject Economics invites creation for each tagged page? —SlamDiego_←T 12:38, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

I note that the template was changed to invited such separate comments with an edit of 01:23, 28 April 2009, by Funandtrvl. Beyond an edit summary of “add parameters that project uses”, there seems to have been no discussion. —SlamDiego_←T 12:50, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing this up. I think we should ditch that--it seems to encourage a duplicate discussion page which will only cause confusion. 14:50, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Since there's been no further comment, I'm going to disable that feature. I ask that editors aware of /Comments subpage to econ articles to please move their contents to the principal Talk: pages of the articles. —SlamDiego_←T 04:44, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

It appears that I am mistaken as to what effected the earlier change. I wasn't able to disable the feature by editing Template:WikiProject Economics. There's something up-stream causing this feature. Later, I'll see if there is an option that will allow the feature to be disabled without edit to the up-stream object. (I'm frying other fish now.) —SlamDiego_←T 04:59, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

I edited the template and removed two lines related to the comments feature (COMMENTS=yes and COMMENTS_FORCE=yes). This change is not immediately visible on article talk pages. Either, wait a while until the wikipedia servers caches are purged (may take a day or two), or make a "null edit" on the article talk page. A null edit is an edit that makes no actual change to the content of the page. I did this to Talk:Austrian School - you'll notice that the comments section no longer exists. This process has not deleted Talk:Austrian_School/Comments - just no longer has a link from inside the banner. Hope this helps —G716 <^T·_C> 05:48, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

There is a list of WikiProject Economics article talk pages with Comments subpages here —G716 <^T·_C> 06:02, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

TNX much. —SlamDiego_←T 06:23, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! That was confusing for me, also. CRETOG8(t/c) 15:18, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Statistics portal at Featured portal candidates

Portal:Statistics is being considered for featured quality status, at the Featured portal candidates process. Comments would be appreciated at Wikipedia:Featured portal candidates/Portal:Statistics. —G716 <^T·_C> 01:30, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

There is no reference for Mankiws "Economics" in the page for Principle of Monetary Neutrality

And as part of it is literally copied from the book, i suggest adding the book as a reference.

thankyo

june 11 2009 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 200.104.15.27 (talk) 17:40, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Do you mean the Neutrality of money article? Can you identify the part which is copied from Mankiw? Even if it's referenced, stuff shouldn't be copied directly from the book. CRETOG8(t/c) 19:36, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

New article

Lucas Welfare Cost of Fluctuations. Right now still a work in progress, though once I add in extensions, criticisms and inline cites I'm gonna put it up for DYK (Wiki does not feature nearly enough technical articles). In the meantime, any input is much appreciated.radek (talk) 01:37, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Economics sidebar

There is some discussion and disagreement regarding changes to the Economics sidebar template. Please voice your thoughts on the proposal to remove drop-down menu so we can gather a consensus on the matter. Thanks Morphh ^(talk) 12:32, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Rating requested for Wage slavery

An editor has requested that the article wage slavery be assesed for quality and importance. I would do it, but I'm too involved. Could someone take a gander and post a rating? Thanks LK (talk) 05:26, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

This article looks really good. With some more polishing I think it could be a strong candidate for WP:GA or WP:FAC. One thing that did jump out at me is an over-use of direct quotations. A few are good, but in general a direct quote should be paraphrased and cited.

And I just noticed it's already been rated. Well, I was planning on rating it the same anyway :) -FrankTobia (talk) 15:16, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Francis Amasa Walker

I have completed a major re-write of Francis Amasa Walker and am soliciting other editors' input, edits, and corrections to the article. Madcoverboy (talk) 17:03, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

some article importance changes

One or more IP editors have recently been changing the ratings of various articles, mostly focusing on increasing the importance of the Austrian school article to "Top", but also things like Mises and Keynes articles (which might both be rated too high as bios, but that's a different matter). I figured I'd give the heads-up here, and point discussion this way when I make reversions. CRETOG8(t/c) 00:22, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Plainly, the editors in question think that they are accomplishing something quite other than what they are. —SlamDiego_←T 01:28, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

That does not appear all that plainly. Could you elaborate S. D.? Also this was not presented correctly by Cretog. Others also made the change besides I.P's. Reality seems to be that one or two people make the ratings. Austrian and Keynes stuff is very basic... and as such top importance. Both are nearly the same except for incidentals. skip sievert (talk) 02:29, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

The “importance” ratings in question aren't there to steer readers; they are there to steer editors from this project and from a philosophy project. The effect of rating v Mises “top” isn't to hurtle readers to it, nor even competent editors. (The competent editors already have an idea of the importance of the Austrian School.) Nor is someone going to see the “low” rating assigned by that editor to Keynes and think “Goodness! I must immediately not read this article about this low-rated fellow Keynes!” —SlamDiego_←T 03:00, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for illuminating. Very interesting & creatively explained. Gracia. skip sievert (talk) 03:33, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Vote

Since edit waring continues on this issue. Let's have a vote to make it clear to everyone what consensus is here at the Econ Wikiproject. LK (talk) 03:49, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

• Comment: The only legitimate function of these ratings would be to direct editors' efforts, and they have no such effect in the case of these particular articles. Thus, what we'll get here is mostly just a sneering war. —SlamDiego_←T 04:59, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
  • Whats the alternative, let drive by IPs set the ratings for our wikiproject headers? LK (talk) 07:02, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
    • Since [A] that's pretty much what they can do to the rest of each article and to its talk page, [B] they'll still be able to reset the “importance” ratings after a vote, and [C] a sneering war isn't going to help, I'd say that we could have forgone the sneering. —SlamDiego_←T 07:35, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
  • I would like to note, that this has been an exceedingly polite and productive discussion, and that the only occurrence of sneering so far has been in the above comments. LK (talk) 14:56, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Importance rating for Austrian school

• Mid - One of several heterodox schools. LK (talk) 03:49, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
• High – One of the three founding schools of the Marginal Revolution. A significant and recurring influence on the mainstream of economic theory at least into the early '90s (notwithstanding that the work being incorporated had been done decades earlier). Still invoked by liberal and conservative policy makers and politicians. Still having a significant popular following. —SlamDiego_←T 04:59, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
• Mid - Schools of economic thought aren't particularly important for an encyclopedia, specific ideas are. Austrian school is arguably less important than some other schools of thought, and few would rise to High. CRETOG8(t/c) 06:23, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
• Mid - Maybe about to become High, given the eclipse of the mainstream free-market school in the light of the GFC, but Wikipedia is not a crystal ball.JQ (talk) 07:54, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
• High: Not my interest, but it's a major heterodox school with a fair following. It still influences mainstream economics (more than can be said of most heterodox schools of thought). CRGreathouse (t | c) 16:20, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
• High: Hard to even call it heterodox as it is so close to what passes for mainstream. Not my interest either, but makes for intense reading, and really interesting critical analysis. skip sievert (talk) 04:11, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
• High - a heterodox school that was a part of the mainstream and that had a major influence on its development. -- Vision Thing -- 11:22, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
• Mid - One heterodox school among many, which is not vital to an elementary economics education. -FrankTobia (talk) 11:40, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
• High: A school of economics that once made very influential contributions, and is now one of the most widespread heterodox schools. --Rinconsoleao (talk) 13:22, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Importance rating for Keynes

• High - Arguably the most important economist of the 20th century. LK (talk) 03:49, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
• High – Schools inspired by his work had a brief but hegemonic grip on academic economics in the West. Once utterly embraced by the political mainstream. Again frequently invoked by social democratic policy makers and politicians after an eclipse. —SlamDiego_←T 04:59, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
• Mid - This is a mood thing, I'm feeling that bios are overplayed, might think it qualifies for High in a different mood. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cretog8 (talk • contribs)
• High per LK JQ (talk) 07:54, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
• High - For better or worse. The most important economist of the 20th. century? Not so much. skip sievert (talk) 04:11, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
• High - one of the most influential economists. -- Vision Thing -- 11:26, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
• High - one of the top economists of the 20th century. -FrankTobia (talk) 11:40, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
• High - as others have said, probably the top economist of the 20th century. Mainstream economics has incorporated much of his viewpoint. --Rinconsoleao (talk) 13:22, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Importance rating for Mises

• Mid -LK (talk) 03:49, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
• High – Perhaps the first marginalist economist to explicitly break with quantified utility. Probably first to explain inflationary process in terms of individual behavior. Core theorist of a theory of the business cycle frequently invoked by liberal and conservative policy makers and politicians. First to publish central critique in the socialist calculation debate. —SlamDiego_←T 04:59, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
• Mid - This is tricky. I feel Low is too low and Mid is too high. lean slightly to Mid. CRETOG8(t/c) 06:23, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
• Mid Notable as a contributor to business cycle theory, but overall much less important than Hayek or Schumpeter, except in the eyes of a small sub-sect.JQ (talk) 07:54, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
• High- Ala SlamDiego - skip sievert (talk) 04:11, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
• Mid - important economist but not as important as some others. -- Vision Thing -- 11:26, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
• Mid - Per JQ, not as important as many others. -FrankTobia (talk) 11:40, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
• Mid - A fairly important economic theorist of an earlier period. --Rinconsoleao (talk) 13:22, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Close this thread following WP:VOTE (Wikipedia decisions aren't made by popular vote) and delete the ratings boxes as unsourced original research and soapboxing which mislead both the readers and editors who seem them. Gwen Gale (talk) 10:29, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Just wanted to be clear that this is just a priority for the wikiproject and does not reflect the "importance" of the article itself. In fact, many wikiprojects have renamed that label to make that point clearer. We also have a scale to guide this section for the project. In any event, I've found the priorities are pretty much meaningless as people will work on whatever articles they want to work on and rarely guide the efforts of the wikiproject. Morphh ^(talk) 11:56, 06 July 2009 (UTC)

I agree they're meaningless, they're also misleading, flawed and wholly unsourced. Hence, they should be removed. Likewise with other projects. The scale rankings are also worrisome, misleading and more or less unsupportable, but not as harmful as the importance rankings. Gwen Gale (talk) 12:53, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure they can really be too flawed or unsourced, as they only reflect our priority as a group to work on them (and we rarely come together as a group to improve articles - I think Adam Smith was the last one). They become somewhat helpful as wikiprojects get larger and article drives are pushed (WikiProject Biography for example). The scale rankings are not project specific, but reflect the article standards of Wikipedia as a whole. I do agree that the "importance" title can be misleading. If others think it's worth it, it would be easy enough to rename it to priority, which better reflects the meaning with regard to the project but even that can be confusing (and not sure it's worth the effort for something we don't use). Morphh ^(talk) 13:11, 06 July 2009 (UTC)

As well as renaming these “importance” ratings, they could be moved from infoboxes on Talk pages to someplace such as Wikipedia:WikiProject Economics/Priorities. That way, they would have less potential to mislead readers, and less value for those who want to use them to sneer. (I think that, no matter where placed, they will never have much practical utility, that few editors will ever be steered by them, though some cliques may use them to uselessly restate mutually agreed projects.) —SlamDiego_←T 14:48, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Spot on what I was about to say. Put them on their own project pages then, where only the very few editors who care about them know where to find them. Gwen Gale (talk) 15:30, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) I agree that they should be renamed to something less misleading (like wikiproject priority?), but we shouldn't get rid of them, I regularly go through the 'top' & 'high' importance articles with 'stub' or 'start' ratings to see if I can quickly bring them up to snuff. It's the first thing I do whenever I have extra time (not so much lately). LK (talk) 15:44, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Those are the "quality" rankings. Although they're often wrong, they're much less harmful. This "vote" was meant to be about the unsourced "importance" rankings, which I do think should be gotten rid of altogether, but which would cause little harm on their own project pages, away from the articles. Gwen Gale (talk) 15:48, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

I do think that the ratings are important; I use them to decide which articles to work on when I'm looking to break out of the articles that I frequently edit. But of course they are easily misconstrued; I don't have a good solution for that. Perhaps just hiding the display? CRGreathouse (t | c) 15:56, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

That's a good idea. Anyone here know how to do template work, know how to tweak it so that by default it doesn't display 'importance'? Quality should still display as that tells the reader how reliable the information is.

Also, Gwen, we need both quality and importance rankings in order to know how to direct our energies. If you really think importance shouldn't exist, perhaps you could bring it up at the wikiprojects page, instead of here. That seems like a more relevant place to pursue that issue. LK (talk) 03:31, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Please keep in mind, I didn't start this thread but rather, said I thought it should be closed. Also, editors can remove templates like these from any talk page if there is a consensus to do so. Gwen Gale (talk) 11:12, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) I created a sandbox for the template and change the scale to priority. It would continue to work if the parameter was defined as "importance", but would display it as priority. We would have to create the new categories, but I think all the articles would automatically move over. Morphh ^(talk) 12:36, 07 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Morph. As usual, great work! LK (talk) 13:50, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Would it be possible to hide the priority box by default? So that people don't get worked up and start edit warring over it? thanks LK (talk) 09:24, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

I'll see what we can do. Since we use the {{WPBannerMeta}}, our customization options are limited. Morphh ^(talk) 12:22, 09 July 2009 (UTC)

Ok, I have some direction on this but need some clarification. Are you saying to hide it if it does not have a priority assigned or if it does have a priority assigned, or both. Part of the reason for displaying it is to have people assign a priority if none exists, so we have to consider that hiding it in that case would reduce the activity of assessing the article. Morphh ^(talk) 12:54, 09 July 2009 (UTC)

On the assumption that these ratings are to be kept at all, the most important thing is that assigned priorities are not displayed on article Talk pages. Further, it should be easy to implement a default value of “unrated”, so that unassigned priorities are also not displayed on article Talk pages, but there will be a centralized listing of “unrated” articles. —SlamDiego_←T 13:14, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

There are unassigned values for both class and priority and there is a centralized listing at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Economics#Statistics. I don't agree with removing them from talk pages. This is a standard practice across WikiProjects and defined by the WikiProject Council, which I think we should follow. Morphh ^(talk) 14:04, 09 July 2009 (UTC)

Renaming it 'priority' is a great idea, but I think it should be visible, so that it can guide as many potential editors as possible, not only those who know how to search for it. Edit wars are rarely a big problem. --Rinconsoleao (talk) 13:30, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Since the WikiProject Council has issued guidance on this, we should keep it visible (although renamed as priority). To reduce edit warring, let's have internal econ wikiproject policy that the rating should in general only be made by econ wikiproject members, and if we see edit warring, we should revert to ratings made by wikiproject members. If two or more wikiproject members disagree, and cannot come to an agreement, and they feel it is important enough an issue, then it should be brought to this talk page for resolution. LK (talk) 14:53, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Ok, I've made the changes to set it to Priority (instead of Importance). I've created the new categories and articles should automatically update to reflect the changes. We might have to wait until tomorrow before the statistics table is updated by the bot, unless someone wants to kick it off manually. Morphh ^(talk) 18:05, 09 July 2009 (UTC)

Update, I'm still working on this... There are a lot of sub-categories to create as we use the quality / importance intersect, which creates sub-category classifications like Category:GA-Class, High-priority Economics articles. However, we're having an issue with the bot or something, the articles show the correct priority category, but is not reflected when you actually go to the categories. So, I'm trying to figure that out. Also, the statistics are not updating on the main chart. I believe this is because the bot looks for an importance categories first, which is empty, and does not look any further. I believe that once the importance categories are deleted, the bot will see no importance category and look for priority, which contains all our articles. I tried to do a speedy delete on those old categories but since we still have the old sub-categories mentioned above, it sees it as not empty. So, hopefully I can get all those sub-cats strait, then delete the main cats, so that all will work in wiki-harmony. :-) Morphh ^(talk) 12:58, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Wage slavery

Wage slavery is desperately in need of help. There are some WP:OWNership issues as well, but I think that if the article is improved the problem will largely go away.

CRGreathouse (t | c) 23:09, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure if it'll be a good use of our time and energies. It looks like it would take a sustained effort, along the lines of the tussle over the inflation article we went through late last year to bring that article in line with the mainstream understanding of inflation. Unfortunately, we have more important articles that still need fixing. LK (talk) 08:44, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

True enough. CRGreathouse (t | c) 12:48, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

That does not seem like a good rationale for letting someone (99.2.224.110) turn the article into a personal blogging site. skip sievert (talk) 16:25, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Actually, since CRGreathouse, Skipsievert, Visionthing and IP:99.2.224.110 are actively editing it, now might be a good time to have a look and work at bringing it up to snuff. LK (talk) 09:19, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Minimum wage

A much narrower dispute at Minimum wage about the weight that should be put on a literature summary by Neumark and Wascher. Some additional views might help achieve a resolution. (You can see my view on the talk page, but I won't canvass it here). JQ (talk) 08:09, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Stigmatized Property

Linked in from an article about some movie. Pretty sure that the article was spookier than the flick. the article was replete with 'woo-woo' and legal inaccuracies. IANAL, nor am I an economist, so I'm afraid I was working blind in a number of ways. I find the legal concept very interesting, having occasionally spotted a news article over the years (usually in the 'would you believe these yokels?' section. feel free to improve on my work - in my opinion the original article simply took an extremely shaky premise and ran with it as gospel. regnad kcin75 7/11/09 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Regnad kcin75 (talk • contribs) 03:46, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Link: Stigmatized property CRETOG8(t/c) 03:51, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Project categories need work

See Category:List-Class Economics articles, you got some with "priority", some with "importance". You also got some pretty full wanted categories like Category:Unassessed-Class, Unknown-priority Economics articles. A lot can probably be fixed just editing the template. Rocket000 (talk) 05:38, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Oh yeah, and the stats box gives all 0s. Rocket000 (talk) 05:39, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. The fellow principally wrestling with these issues is aware of the problems, which are largely an artefact of an on-going conversion process and of his attempts to improve functionality. —SlamDiego_←T 06:35, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

I believe I've created all the new categories now, and have marked the others for deletion... so hopefully everything will be updated in the next day or so. Morphh ^(talk) 21:37, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Ok, I think everything should be working correctly now. Let me know if you see any additional issues. Morphh ^(talk) 13:58, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Disagreement over lead in History of Economic Thought

Skip and I are having a disagreement over the lead at History of economic thought, would appreciate some comments on the issue on the talk page. Thanks, LK (talk) 15:39, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Macmillan Committee

Could someone please take a look at this article? I'm not an economist and need a sanity check. Strikehold (talk) 21:44, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Could you clarify your problems with it? I gave it a quick read through, and it seems fine. NPV and very well cited. LK (talk) 01:45, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

I didn't have any specific problems, I just wanted to make sure I didn't include any glaring errors or omissions. Thanks for the help. Strikehold (talk) 02:02, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

I just noticed that you wrote the article single-handedly. Nice work! LK (talk) 05:22, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Thank you, and thanks again for giving it a look over. Strikehold (talk) 20:04, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Biflation

I don't see an AfD section here but you may be interested in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Biflation. Ben MacDui 15:23, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Check Money burning

Hello, I've just started a new article, Money burning. I'd like to get it on WP:DYK in the next few days. Before that happens, could someone knowledgeable please check it out and make sure it isn't completely wrong? Also a section on game theory would be nice. Thanks, Melchoir (talk) 01:54, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

WP:SYNTH. —SlamDiego_←T 02:17, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Urg. I don't want to agree with SlamDiego on this one, but I lean towards thinking they're correct. I like the beginnings of the article, though, so I'm very willing to be talked into changing my mind. CRETOG8(t/c) 03:19, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Where exactly do you see the problem? Melchoir (talk) 03:29, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

You article is likely to not be inaccurate per se. But, it appears to be poorly sourced. The sources don't fully back up much of what you state in the article. If you put forward a view or argument that has not already been put forward in a reliable source, that constitutes original research or synthesis (WP:OR, WP:SYN). OTOH, policy is that if the statement is not contentious, it doesn't need a source, so I'm inclined to think that the article is 'ok' as it stands.

I thank everyone for commenting, and I appreciate your enthusiasm, but this discussion to date has not been constructive. Let me assure you that I am familiar with content policy, and giving me WP links is a waste of time. Neither did I come here for an opinion poll. What I lack is a broad view of economics. Tell me which statements you are concerned about. Quote them here if you like. Better yet, use the article talk page. Feel free to apply {{citation needed}} if that helps you. As it is, I don't even know which sections you are looking at. Melchoir (talk) 05:05, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Fixed some things in the article. Hope this helps. LK (talk) 06:53, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

It does, thanks! Melchoir (talk) 08:25, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Paul Krugman

Things are getting quite heated over at the Paul Krugman page. If you have time, it might be worthwhile dropping by the talk page. Thanks, LK (talk) 06:53, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
To clarify, I think there are some BLP violations going on there. More eyes would be helpful. Thanks, LK (talk) 15:00, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

To clarify further, the specific issue of relevance to WP Economics is whether Krugman, in the opening sentence of his entry, should be described as a "liberal economist, columnist, author" or as a "Keynesian economist, liberal columnist and author". Comments at Talk:Paul Krugman#Liberal economics please. Rd232 ^talk 19:42, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Deleting Pie method

Dmcq (talk · contribs) writes:

I've put a prod on Pie method which is a putative method of fair division because I believe it is simply wrong. I actually found a place on the internet though where somebody quoted it though not as the 'pie method' and it probably didn't come from wikipedia! I sort of wonder if it is notably wrong and I should keep it and say it is rubbish? Perhaps I should put it under Proportional (fair division) as an attempt which is wrong and explain - but then the explanation could be counted as WP:OR. Dmcq (talk) 23:34, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

I thought this may be interesting to members of this WikiProject. CRGreathouse (t | c) 23:45, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

I just glanced at the article, and cannot vouch for its particulars. But the method itself can certainly be supported on game theoretic grounds. Under standard assumptions of preference, the person effecting the division maximizes his expected well-being by effecting an equal division. (It gets more complicated if the first person both places a premium on the satisfaction of the other party, and expects that other party not to put a premium on the well-being of the divider.) And this method is well established in folk lore and wisdom. —SlamDiego_←T 04:55, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Are you talking about the two-person case? That's covered at Divide and choose. CRGreathouse (t | c) 05:25, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

I see now that “Pie method” begins talking about the two-person case, and then attempts to extend it. If the two-person case is well covered at “Divide and choose”, then I say, by all means, just turn “Pie method” into a redirect. If there's an appropriately documented way to extend the method to more persons, that should be added at “Divide and choose”. —SlamDiego_←T 05:33, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Setting aside the issue of “reliable sources” just for the sake of discussion here, what problem do you have with the extension? On the assumption of mutual disinterest, &c, the first divider again maximizes his expected share by excising 1/n of the total, where n is the number of participants. —SlamDiego_←T 05:40, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

The method is vulnerable to parties with nonzero knowledge of others' preferences, to collusion, to imperfect cuts, to externalities, and most every other flaw you could find. Aside from the issues of WP:RS and WP:OR, of course.

Have you heard this name for the procedure in question (2-person or otherwise)? I'm wondering if it's a good redirect or not.

CRGreathouse (t | c) 05:54, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Almost all of these objections are addressed by very conventional assumptions. Granted that either the assumptions should be explicitly stated or the reader should be given a link to a dicussion of them. An editor already noted the issue of collusion. And the problem of imperfect cuts is like the problem of a participant being potentially blind and palsied — true but out of the relevant conceptual space.

The need to avoid “original research” and to cite “reliable sources” is of course very important, and might prove fatal to an attempt to discussion the extension in a Wikipedia article. —SlamDiego_←T 07:46, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure there are published fair division methods that are stable to small judgment errors, so I wouldn't call this "out of the relevant conceptual space". CRGreathouse (t | c) 12:18, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Whose notion of “small” are we using? —SlamDiego_←T 01:05, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

I'll try to find you a reference. CRGreathouse (t | c) 22:45, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

I've come across this idea before - and I'm pretty sure it was in print. I don't remember though, and without sourcing (and the article is 5 years old) it should go, and the need to elaborate assumptions is moot. Rd232 ^talk 08:52, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Here's a bit on the web You cut I choose where the incorrect method is used.

The article Proportional (fair division) has a few fair division procedures for three or more people. I think the 'last diminisher' is probably the closest correct one to what was described.

Here's an example I just made up showing 'Pie method' is not a method of fair division for three people.

Suppose you have a pizza with jalapino chillis sprinkled unevenly on top so they are mostly in one third of the pizza. And there are persons Tom, Dick and Harry who are entitled to equal shares. And suppose also that Harry is a jalapino junkie who mainly wants the chillis but the other two don't mind either way.

The first person Tom cuts a third as exactly as he can out of the pizza which just happens to have most of the chillis on. It is offered to Dick first and he accepts it. Then there isn't enough of the chillis left in the remainder of the pizza to give Harry his fair 1/3 share. Dmcq (talk) 09:45, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

But, under this argument, the classic two-person case is also “unfair”. Suppose that Dick is out of the picture, and the jalapeños are entirely on one half of the pie. According to one of your implicit assumptions, the “fairest” way to divide this pie gives exactly that half to Harry (as Tom does not care). Yet, if Tom cuts, he will (under another of your assumptions), divide the pie into half randomly. The probability of the “fair”est division would be literally 0.

One might as well propose dividing a child in this way (without recipients being given a Solomonic option to pass on their shares). The method is plainly intended to be applied to goods and to services of a particular sort. —SlamDiego_←T 14:11, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

The simplest fair division condition is that everyone gets at least 1⁄N by their own valuation, this is proportional (fair division). Exactly half is fair for two but more is also fair and better. If Tom cuts the pizza randomly in half as he doesn't care then Harry will just pick the bit with more jalapeños, in fact he will almost certainly get more than half as far as he is concerned. Dmcq (talk) 14:51, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Ah, things should be as simple as possible, but no simpler. It's pretty clear that most people would see a division as unfair if it injured one innocent person without benefiting another, when this is not intrinsic to an “equal” division, which is exactly what happens in the above case of the half-jalapeño pizza. (Assuming that Tom and Harry are innocent, which, admittedly, is very questionable in the case of Harry.)

Assume that Tom is indifferent both to pickles and to jalapeños, that Harry regards them as complements, and that all of the pickles are on one half and all of the jalapeños are on the other. In Harry's eyes, the only way that the pie can be divided such that he gets 1⁄n of its value is if the pie is divided into two shares with an equal amount of each. The probability of Tom effecting such a division is 0.

Of course, we could amend the claim about fairness to a claim that the relevant value from which to compute the fraction is the post-division value, but this would mean that a division that reduced the value to at or below zero (as presumably in the case of the aforementioned baby) would be fair.

Again, the method is only meant to be applied to certain sorts of goods and of services. —SlamDiego_←T 15:23, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Having pickles and jalapeños linked in that way hardly sounds simple. There is a theory of fair division but it assumes everyone's values are positive and additive or at least a weak version of that. Anyway the point isn't to ensure both people view the other as getting the same as themselves, it is to ensure they get at least 1⁄n by their own valuation. They don't care what the other person gets. There's more complex versions where one wants to make sure no one envies anybody else but that's automatic for two people if they get at least a half by their own valuation. Dmcq (talk) 16:24, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

I"m not saying that having pickles and peppers linked in that way is simple; I'm saying that it's easy to construct goods and preferences such that the classic method won't result in a fair division. Nor did the pickles and peppers example involve seeking to get what the other person got per se. The point is that the classic method assumes something about the effective nature of the good or of the service, just as the above proposed extension assumes something about the above proposed good or service. It's fine to note when we are outside their frameworks, but simply calling them “wrong” is inappropriate. —SlamDiego_←T 16:39, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

Are you saying the Pie method is a classic method? If so it deserves inclusion even if wrong by any reasonable criterion. That is what I was wondering about originally. Wikipedia is based on notability not truth. However I was unable to determine if it was notable. Have you seen it referenced somewhere other than a web page? Dmcq (talk) 16:55, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

I've been referring to the two-person method (of which the discussed extension is not the only possible extension) as “classic”. As to the extension, I'm unsure that it's “notable”, and I'm not personally aware of a prior statement of it in a “reliable source”. The remarks of CRGreathouse lead me to believe that such a source could be found, but that belief isn't an adequate substitute for the sourcing.

The main value, for the purposes of writing articles, of discussing the truth or falsity of the method is to direct us for what to seek in the literature. For example, if the method indeed were simply wrong, then we'd be surprised (though, sadly, not shocked) to find peer-reviewed literature that said otherwise, and there'd be less hope of finding any discussion at all. Likewise, if it were in fact applicable to any division, then we'd be more surprised to find criticisms of it. —SlamDiego_←T 17:15, 9 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm almost certain I've seen the two-person case in the literature. It's basic enough that it might be hard to find outside a textbook or the like.

Here's a reference to the two-person case: "DD2 is related to the game 'one divides, the other chooses.' In this game, one player divides, say, a candy bar into integral pieces: 99% vs. 1%; 98% vs. 2%; etc. The other player chooses which portion it will take. The chooser has the advantage in this game, because if the divider does not make a perfectly even 50-50 cut, the chooser can take the larger portion." from Brams & Taylor, "Three solutions to divide the dollar". There are surely better ones in basic game theory texts.

The 'pickles and jalapeños' example shows that, if you allow non-weakly additive preferences, the two-person method is Pareto-inefficient. (This isn't a fatal flaw; that's a hard case.) But the same example shows that the three-person Pie method does not even produce a fair division, and that's where it transitions from flawed to wrong in my book. (Simpler example: the cutter values the pie uniformly and cuts a third that happens to have all the cherries. The second and third players value only the cherries.)

CRGreathouse (t | c) 18:49, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

You seem not to have followed the discussion. The pickles-and-jalapeños pie was a twist on a partly-jalapeños pie suggested by Dmcq, which is isomorphic to the cherry pie in your example. Dmcq explicitly located the issue of additivity in discussing the still-nastier pie. And, naturally, no claim was made that the particular extension under discussion of the classic method would somehow work for values of $n$ greater than 2. The point of the pickle-and-jalapeño case was not to find where the extension would work while the classic method failed; it was to show that each of these methods presumes something about the nature of the good or service to be divided, which presumption is not true of all good or services. If we define “fair” in some unnatural way, then we can recover the claim of “fairness” for any method, but a loss of Pareto optimality without a gain in equality will not accord with every-day notions of fairness; it will simply be seen as “unfair” that Harry couldn't get a better slice, when it could have come without loss to Tom. To call this extension wrong but the classic method right is simply inappropriate. They are both a right tool for their respective tasks, though the wrong tool for other tasks. —SlamDiego_←T 20:43, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

I'm talking about the extension that is in the article Pie method that is being discussed. It's an extended answer to your question to me, "what problem do you have with the extension?" under the assumption you specified.

The classical method is envy-free; the extension is not. Does that work for you? That's pretty much the standard condition for fair division problems.

CRGreathouse (t | c) 21:54, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

No, it doesn't work for me. The problem is in your reference to “the standard condition”; it is not the standard condition used by lay-people; it is not the condition that the inventors of the classic method — which predates modern economics by millennia — were seeking to meet. Nor did the editors who gave us the article on the extension signal that they were using “fair” in the sense of some technical jargon, rather than in an every-day sense. I don't mind your insisting that the extension doesn't meet some criteria that the classic method does; I object to declaring either method as wrong by virtue of finding situations that one or both is really not meant to cover in the first place. —SlamDiego_←T 08:38, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

I must admit I'm confused by what SlamDiego is referring to when he talks about an extension. Anyway the Divide and choose article is probably right to be a bit discursive rather than just fit in as a type of fair division. It was around long before the theory was invented after all. So I guess the additivity criterion should be added there as well rather than just being assumed and it would make the article more self contained. It doesn't look to me like pie method even deserves to become a redirect. Dmcq (talk) 08:22, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Pretty plainly, the method in “Pie method” is an extension of the classic method for dividing a pie amongst two parties. There is some disagreement here as to whether the extension is “wrong”, but even were it wrong it would still be an extension. —SlamDiego_←T 08:38, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

Im the absence of “reliable source” discussion of the extension, I don't see why anyone would have a problem with redirecting “Pie method” to a discussion of the classic algorithm. Many people will almost certainly search for discussion of the classical method by that name. Instead, I'm not sure that “Pie method” is a good name for the extension (were a “reliable source” found) because, again, it is not the only possible extension. —SlamDiego_←T 08:42, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

To my mind, the only sensible options are redirecting it and deleting it as an unlikely redirect. CRGreathouse (t | c) 16:15, 12 August 2009 (UTC)

In the absence of “reliable sources”, I agree. I favor a redirect. —SlamDiego_←T 03:59, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

GA Sweeps Reassessment of Frank Fetter

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Paul Krugman article issues

Any one interested in the article and its surrounding ideas please come to overview and engage in editing for a broader consensus of ideas [1]. Currently the article is mostly too small as to ideas of what is good for inclusion... or not. Please pile in with ideas and suggestions. skip sievert (talk) 16:36, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Articles listed at AFD

• Unsolved problems in economics (AfD discussion)

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Category:Markov chains and Category:Markov models

There is a naming dispute considering the correct name for the category for the main article Markov chain and related articles, see WP:CFD. 76.66.192.144 (talk) 03:22, 28 August 2009 (UTC)