skywalkerze t1_j20xh23 wrote on December 28, 2022 at 9:26 PM

Reply to comment by Zebulon_Flex in Ask Anything Wednesday - Economics, Political Science, Linguistics, Anthropology by AutoModerator

One of the reasons is you can't do controlled experiments in macroeconomics. Can't start with 3 identical countries and try them with higher, normal and lower interbank rates, while making sure everything else is the same.

atomfullerene t1_j26fq94 wrote on December 30, 2022 at 12:11 AM

Also, if you did somehow figure it out and published your results, the traders and businessmen would read your papers and alter their behavior based on what you wrote....which would change the underlying behavior of the market and probably make your discovery invalid.

Zebulon_Flex t1_j21utec wrote on December 29, 2022 at 1:21 AM

That makes sense. Do you think that economics will ever be "solved"? Like with computer simulations or something?

skywalkerze t1_j23cbiw wrote on December 29, 2022 at 10:11 AM

"Ever" is a long time, but I don't think we will solve economics as it is defined today. Maybe if we reframe the problem somehow, and in the process change the way society deals with money and allocation of resources.

Another problem is that if it was "solved", who gets rich or poor would be predetermined and probably could be changed as we want. How could that work? Who would accept a system where the results of a lifetime of work are fixed and you cannot change them? Communism had a big problem with this, nobody bothered to do a good job at work, because it made no difference to your income or status or anything like that.