[kevinnk]

I've recommended to plenty of people that they read "Principles of Macroeconomics" by Greg Mankiw, but weirdly enough no one has. Maybe I just didn't urge urge urge them enough?

Actually, if you believe economics hasn't changed since the 18th century you really should read it. Who knows, maybe you'll even reevaluate your understanding of economics.

[frgtpsswrdlame]

Principles is the exact wrong thing for someone casually interested in economics to read. It's the proliferation of the belief that Econ 101 is "real econ" when it's anything but. You can get an undergrad degree in Econ and still have no real understanding of how the economy works. Sure you'll have a simple model but that model will fail over and over again because it's far too simplified. That's why I recommend Economism. It's inoculation to Econ 101.

[kevinnk]

I don't really care if people understand "real econ" (whatever that means) but most people haven't even progressed past a folk understanding of economics. Having at least a cursory understanding of why, e.g., price controls lead to scarcity is really a requirement to create an informed criticism of any part of Econ 101. To get to that point, reading through an intro level textbook is exactly what is needed.

[frgtpsswrdlame]

I just don't buy that. Despite being less popular in academia there is absolutely an abundance of politically motivated libertarian/austrian/chicago school blogs, videos and books out there. Many intelligent young people fall down this rabbit hole early and never try to get out. Econ 101 books are only going to solidify their belief that they know economics. Something that challenges the simplified view of economics, that asks when the assumptions of some of these models ever actually apply, about what happens when you start dropping assumptions, about frictions and so on is what's needed. I looked around a bit to find the best article I could from my perspective, maybe you could read it and tell me what you think?

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2015-11-24/most-of-w...

[kevinnk]

Any libertarian who takes Econ 101 will find their beliefs challenged tremendously, and not just by the "simple models" you're talking about. To be perfectly blunt, it sounds like you're trying to criticize something that you have an preconceived notion of, but no direct experience with, which is exactly why I was recommending you read Mankiw in the first place. I think you'll be surprised with the amount of time he spends on things like case studies of market failures or why the federal reserve system is a good idea.

As to your link, Noah (whom I respect tremendously) does make a good point, but I think he overstates his case; true, simple supply-demand models don't work in every case (and the minimum wage is a good example of that, although I would counter that most of the non econ101 parts are somewhat short term and restricted to small increases) but for the vast, vast majority of cases people encounter in real life they work surprisingly well. Additionally, supply and demand is only a part of econ 101: Why can't I get tickets to Hamilton without paying a lot? Why do some restaurants charge more for dinner? If we put a tariff on Mexico, who pays? What are the pros and cons of free trade? What does deadweight loss mean? What does the federal reserve do and how does it affect me? What's the relationship between the money supply and inflation? What are the arguments for targeting non zero inflation? Why did we leave the gold standard? Is government debt bad? How is GDP measured? Why does the exchange rate change? Why doesn't the employment rate go to zero? What does the employment rate even mean? How do taxes affect the economy? Do different taxes have different effects? What are the arguments for and against using tax policy to encourage saving? What options does the government have to fight a recession? My city wants to reduce driving downtown, what are some possible policies? What economic policies can we use to fight global warming? What are the arguments for and against rent control? What is a monopoly? All of these questions are easily answered with macroecon 101 level knowledge and most are hard to answer without (we haven't even started talking about micro!) That doesn't mean econ 101 is always applicable, but it does mean you'll have a far better understanding of the world after taking it, even if you do come in with some preconceived notions.

I will say that Noah's suggestion that econ 101 should be more emperical is a good idea, and I especially believe that there should be a stronger emphasis on stats. I actually think that's true of all the social sciences though, and its a separate issue from what you're talking about.

[frgtpsswrdlame]

>To be perfectly blunt, it sounds like you're trying to criticize something that you have an preconceived notion of, but no direct experience with, which is exactly why I was recommending you read Mankiw in the first place.

I don't believe it counts for much but I do have an B.S. in Econ which is to say I have crawled through Macro 101 books and 102 and 200 and so on so I'm aware of what's in Mankiw's book. I would also say that I have no idea of your economics education and I'm not trying to measure dicks here. You may well know more than me, my argument is purely about how to get laypeople to better understand a field I love.

>All of these questions are easily answered with macroecon 101 level knowledge

No! Absolutely not.

>Is government debt bad? ... How do taxes affect the economy? Do different taxes have different effects? What are the arguments for and against using tax policy to encourage saving?

Specifically these questions, the ones in your list that are most likely to come up in casual political conversation are not answered by Econ 101. And other incredibly common political topics like antitrust, minimum wage, other tax questions, wage gaps, welfare, international trade will get no meaningful answer from 101.

Economics is the one field of study in America today where someone who reads three blog posts thinks they're an expert, someone who reads one book, and so on and so on (NOTE: I am also not claiming at all to be an expert. I actually believe that undergrad econ is, unfortunately, a waste of time). My point in encouraging my books (I'm not sure I have the correct language for the point I'm trying to make here so forgive me) is not to make a positive correction and "get people to actually understand economics now" because it's not that simple and frankly 99.9% of people will never understand it because they'll never put in the time to. My books are to encourage a negative correction where people are willing to say "I don't understand economics" just like they'll admit they don't understand programming or physics or psychiatry or anything else. Because there's a lot of people that don't know dick about econ and they're unwilling to admit it. People need to be exposed to complex market failure after complex market failure after complex market failure so they understand the simplified understanding they gained in Business Economics or mises.org is not the real world. Noah doesn't overstate his case he states it exactly right (and much better than I have here).

[kevinnk]

To reiterate: Most people's thinking on the minimum wage hasn't progressed past "if poor people got paid more they'd be better off, therefore raise the minimum wage." Many people's thinking on walfare haven't evolved past "I don't want to give money to lazy poor people". Sure, someone who's taken Econ101 may not have the ultimately nuanced opinion, but at least their understanding is going to be far closer to reality than someone who hasn't. The ideas in 101 are simplified, but the truth is that they're almost certainly better than whatever was in the person's head before, even if they aren't a complete description.

That being said, if you haven't read Mankiw you really should. He goes into far more detail than you seem to think, on many of the exact subjects you listed. Maybe econ101 has progressed since you last took it.

> Economics is the one field of study in America today where someone who reads three blog posts thinks they're an expert

Ha. It's funny how many fields think this way. A friend of mine who's an MD in sports medicine says the same thing ("People read one exercise book and think they know everything!"). Another friend of mine says the same thing about law. Another says the same about foreign policy. Etc, etc, etc.

If your goal is to get people to people to stop pretending like they know econ after reading one pop-economics​ book, well I don't know what to tell you except that in all likelihood human nature isn't going to change; people have been overconfident about things they don't know "dick" about since the beginning of human history and probably will continue to do so regardless of whether they read your books or not.

By the way, if you really believe that exposure to "complex market failure after complex market failure" is really the answer, there's plenty of places on the internet that do just that. Go to /r/latestagecapitalism or /r/socialism and observe all the nuance and humility that results. In reality, people just as readily end up overconfident in the opposite direction.

[stupidhn]

>but most people haven't even progressed past a folk understanding of economics

There are a few subjects where the average HN denizen thinks they know more than the professionals by having read a mainstream book or two. Economics is one. You can identify these people when they ask, 'How come economists couldn't predict the crisis?'

[TheOtherHobbes]

Of course absence of price control mechanisms can also lead to scarcity through bubble mechanisms - which can be tamed through taxes.

Ask anyone trying to buy a house in Vancouver.

Does Mankiw mention this in his "requirement for informed criticism"?

[stupidhn]

>Does Mankiw mention this in his "requirement for informed criticism"?

Are you honestly asking whether Mankiw discusses supply/demand price effects in his textbook?

[kevinnk]

Prices are high because demand is high and supply is low. Yes, that gets covered.

[cgmg]

Please enlighten us as to how your non-mainstream model is superior. The burden of proof is on you.

Also, your claim that economics hasn't advanced since the 18th century is absurd and betrays an ignorance of the subject.

[frgtpsswrdlame]

>Also, your claim that economics hasn't advanced since the 18th century is absurd and betrays an ignorance of the subject.

Perhaps it was worded poorly but if you reread you can actually see that's the opposite of what I said.

[mrout]

ECON101 isn't 'mainstream economics'. It's incredibly simplified economics.

[barrkel]

Mankiw is a bit of a right wing nutjob, though orthodox in the Chicago school. I wouldn't recommend his books, despite their prevalence in academia.