| One thing ChatGPT probably won't tell you about macroeconomic theory unless specifically asked about it is that a lot of the foundational assumptions are highly idealized and aren't that useful for making real-world predictions: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-economist-has... > "But what is not widely known is that these now legendary economists—William Stanley Jevons, Léon Walras, Maria Edgeworth and Vilfredo Pareto—developed their theories by adapting equations from 19th-century physics that eventually became obsolete." I'd probably trust ChatGPT more on elucidating the history of the development of macroeconomic theory then on applications of the theory to real-world problems, but that goes for the working professionals in the field as well, with all their rosy predictions of the benefits of NAFTA to the working public in the 1990s, or their predictions of the benefits of financial deregulation in the early 2000s prior to the 2008 Recession, and so on. E.g. ChatGPT claims American academic institutions adopted macroeconomic theory with Milton Friedman at Chicago and Alvin Hansen at Harvard, and this was preceded by development in the 1920s at the National Bureau of Economic Research and in the 1930s with the Cowles Commission. If you ask it what role the above four individuals in the quote played in the development of macroeconomic theory, it gives illuminating answers on utility, general equilibrium, indifference curves, and Pareto efficiency (which, ChatGPT claims strongly, is not zero-sum game thinking). This all seems fairly accurate based on other sources, except that the relationship between game theory and Pareto efficiency seems fairly contentious. Also, here's a good question to ask it in the context of the desirability of optimizing Pareto efficiency: "Has macroeconomic theory ever been criticized on teleological grounds?" Generally, this is probably not the best subject to give to ChatGPT as a quantitative test. Maybe try it out with something more concrete, like how to use gravitational assist (aka 'slingshot') to send a spacecraft to Jupiter or Saturn, and see how explicit it can get in terms of a launch trajectory? |