[HN Gopher] Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memo...
___________________________________________________________________
Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred
Nobel 2024
Author : hdvr
Score : 88 points
Date : 2024-10-14 10:18 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nobelprize.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nobelprize.org)
| EugeneG wrote:
| Which is why the pro-Trump tech folks are playing with fire.
| Exchanging potentially faster approvals/lower regulation for
| favored projects, for an environment where rule of law and
| institutions are weakened.
| pavlov wrote:
| The pro-Trump tech folks are 90% about crypto. It's single-
| issue politics, like abortion or gun rights.
|
| Scratch the surface on a SV Trump supporter like Marc
| Andreessen, and you'll find a big bag of crypto that they want
| to keep dumping on retail investors.
| lokar wrote:
| It's not really about crypto. It just self interest.
| superidiot1932 wrote:
| Which crypto Bill Ackman is trying to dump on retail?
| lern_too_spel wrote:
| Ackman is not a tech folk.
| lokar wrote:
| The slow and messy process of reaching consensus (or close) via
| a complex web of institutions help "western" (in the sense that
| Kotkin uses) societies avoid really bad policy and adapt to
| mistakes.
|
| Some people are frustrated by this and think it would be much
| better to substitute their judgment for this process. They
| don't necessarily hold this view selfishly or maliciously, they
| are just short sighted.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| Yes. _Their_ judgment. Everyone else gets to shut up and take
| it. It 's a very selfish view, whether or not they are
| consciously selfish about it.
| lokar wrote:
| I guess I agree. I tend to try to view others actions in
| best reasonable light, so I default to the idea that they
| are simply blind to their own limits, but mean well.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| I guess I'd better assume the best about such people,
| given how easy it is for me to have the same attitude...
| whimsicalism wrote:
| More rules doesn't mean stronger rule of law.
|
| Having lots of weakly enforced or discretionary laws is net
| worse for rule of law and a stable non-corrupt society.
| renewiltord wrote:
| More law, better regulation comes from the same school as
| more code, better product. It's obviously bullshit but novice
| practitioners and non-practitioners support the idea because
| they think all problems are solvable with more something.
| jhp123 wrote:
| you've misread the comment, weakened rule of law and lesser
| regulations are two different things that (according to the
| comment) are being exchanged. For example firing Comey had
| nothing to do with regulations.
| hhs wrote:
| If interested, this page has context:
| https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/economic-sciences/2024/pop...
| cjalmeida wrote:
| I strongly recommend Acemoglu, Robinson classic book "Why Nations
| Fail"
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Why-Nations-Fail-Origins-Prosperity/d...
|
| It's very accessible, no economics background required. Along
| with Krugman and Kahneman, one of the few economics scholars that
| take the time to write a book for layman.
| alephnerd wrote:
| I also recommend Acemolgu's recent book "Power and Progress" on
| the relationship between labor and technology [0].
|
| If you don't like reading, Acemoglu gave a talk about it at HKS
| recently [1]
|
| [0] - https://ig.ft.com/sites/business-book-
| award/books/2023/longl...
|
| [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WT0NzlATjf0
| js8 wrote:
| I read the summary from the review and I am not convinced that
| neoliberal US and EU have a less extractive governance
| structure than China has, as the authors seem to claim. It's
| been a decade since the book was published and China is still
| going strong. We will see.
| dash2 wrote:
| China has become more and more authoritarian under Xi, its
| GDP growth stats may be dodgy, and recently its housing
| bubble has popped big-style. It could go the way of Japan. I
| agree with your last sentence, all the same.
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| How do you know this?
|
| I don't want to single this out but tangible proof of a net
| increase in 'authoritarian' decision making, compared to
| say a decade ago, has never been posted on HN, as far as I
| know.
|
| Most of the in depth analysis I've seen suggests that
| although enforcement actions have become stricter over the
| past decade, the actual number of new laws and regulations
| has gone down.
|
| And more importantly, the number of contradictory laws and
| regulations (between central authorities, and between the
| centre and provinces) has gone way way down.
|
| So there's much less leeway to punish on a whim or trap
| someone in a double bind, compared to a decade ago. Which
| suggests a net decrease, if anything.
| vlovich123 wrote:
| It depends on if you're talking about authoritarianism as
| it relates to the average person or the political and
| ruling class. There have been a lot of reports of Xi
| getting rid of a lot of potential adversaries when he
| announced himself ruler for life and the imprisonment of
| Jack Ma and stripping him of his wealth for making
| challenging statements against Xi seems pretty
| authoritarian.
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| Does it makes sense to discuss it relative to the
| 'political and ruling class'?
|
| Since they pretty much all have party cards already. And
| the moment they give it up means they're kicked out from
| any decision making, from what I understand.
|
| Yes internal factions within the party can arbitrarily
| punish each other for made up reasons all day long, every
| day of the year.
|
| So in a sense it was already authoritarian without limit.
|
| But that's not new, nor different from any other big
| political party.
| vlovich123 wrote:
| The kind of punishment authoritarian regimes dish out is
| much more severe in ways that you couldn't do in the US
| (imprisonment, seizure of assets, death). In fact I'd
| argue it's the only kind that matters. Authoritarian
| regimes rarely go after normal people unless they speak
| out actively against the government (which China does)
| and instead focus on controlling and censoring anyone in
| a position of power and let the implicit censoring of the
| entire population flow downstream from that.
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| If the party membership is revoked first, then the person
| wouldn't be part of the 'political and ruling class' any
| longer.
|
| Then they would just be a citizen who might formerly have
| been some bigshot, i.e. the second case.
|
| It still doesn't seem to make sense to discuss any
| increases relative to the first case, since in 2012 it
| was already unlimitedly authoritarian.
| vlovich123 wrote:
| Revoking party membership doesn't mean much necessarily
| if you still wield influence and power. Imagine if Barack
| Obama or Bill Clinton were kicked out by Joe Biden trying
| to consolidate power. They'd still have a voice and be
| influential outside of their party membership. That's why
| Xi needs to imprison his rivals and root them out beyond
| just revoking their membership. And again I'll point you
| to the example made of Jack Ma who wasn't in the
| political party except maybe nominally but had wealth. I
| think you've never lived under an authoritarian regime
| and never talked with people who lived under it to
| understand what life is like.
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| This is getting too into the weeds, of course individual
| situations can be analyzed, but this doesn't apply to
| 'the political and ruling class' as a whole.
|
| To be more precise in wording, the net increase, or
| decrease, in net negative authoritarian decision making
| is what matters for me and probably most HN readers.
|
| Since this increase, or decrease, may be positive and
| negative to varying degrees for various people and
| factions, it's practically impossible to tell if it's net
| negative for the class as a whole.
| cherryteastain wrote:
| US does all the nasty crap China does. Less brazenly, but
| it's certainly there.
|
| > imprisonment
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guantanamo_Bay_detention_
| cam...
|
| The Guantanamo Bay detention camp is a United States
| military prison...As of August 2024, at least 780 persons
| from 48 countries have been detained at the camp since
| its creation, of whom 740 had been transferred elsewhere,
| 9 died in custody, and 30 remain; only 16 detainees have
| ever been charged by the U.S. with criminal offenses.
|
| > seizure of assets
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_forfeiture_in_the_U
| nit...
|
| In the United States, civil forfeiture (also called civil
| asset forfeiture or civil judicial forfeiture)[1] is a
| process in which law enforcement officers take assets
| from people who are suspected of involvement with crime
| or illegal activity without necessarily charging the
| owners with wrongdoing...To get back the seized property,
| owners must prove it was not involved in criminal
| activity.
|
| > death
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_the
| _Un...
|
| > go after normal people unless they speak out actively
| against the government
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Assange
| blackhawkC17 wrote:
| There should be a word for when someone picks the most
| extreme situation to prove their point.
|
| Yes, the U.S., Europe, and all well-governed democracies
| aren't perfect, but they're much better than China in
| that regard.
|
| A litmus test: U.S. and European citizens are free to
| challenge their leaders, e.g., the recent glut of anti-
| establishment parties garnering more votes in the EU.
| Some of these guys are loons, yet they're free to
| challenge the status quo because that's part of
| democracy.
|
| Remind me where Xi Jinping and Putin's political
| opponents end up again? In jail or dead.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| The difference between oligarchy that deliberately
| maintains balance of power and interests between, say,
| dozens or hundreds of prominent players, and a one-man
| rule where the "courtiers" are just richer than an
| average citizen, but equally subjugated to the Dear
| Leader, is enormous.
|
| Both Russia and China developed since 2000 from one to
| the other, and I wonder what the end game will be. In
| Russian case, the development led to re-establishment of
| the imperial idea and an attempt to conquer formerly held
| lands by force; that is something that the oligarchs
| wouldn't start, but a neo-Tsar absolutely did.
|
| Communist China used to be way less externally aggressive
| than Russia / USSR, but I don't like the current military
| gestures by Xi. Not at all.
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| So the degree of authoritarian decision making felt by
| 'courtiers' within the party can vary from year to year?
|
| I guess that is possible, but if that's the case,
| wouldn't that naturally be their goal? To concentrate
| power and authority in one place, or person, that they
| can more readily manipulate.
| feedforward wrote:
| People were saying when the PRC was founded 75 years ago it
| would collapse any day now. They were saying this during
| the cultural revolution. They were saying it earlier this
| year, as China sent a robot to the far side of the moon to
| collect moon rocks and bring them back to earth. And
| they're still saying it. I'm not holding my breath.
| doctorpangloss wrote:
| There are HN posters with the ability to see hard data
| inside America's largest tech and manufacturing
| businesses, but don't investigate the question, "How much
| of what you buy every day was made in China?"
| kiba wrote:
| Just because PRC didn't collapse doesn't mean PRC perform
| well. On the contrary, the current strength of PRC is
| probably a reversion to mean, what China would be like if
| it wasn't so mismanaged, and yet decades late from where
| they could be.
|
| States can endure a lot of mismanagement. Look at North
| Korea for instance. What we won't know is when we hit the
| breaking point.
|
| What is happening in Russia may lead to an eventual
| collapse, though unlikely. There are some signs of a loss
| of monopoly on violence as the system is pushed to its
| breaking point. Hopefully that won't happen, but it's a
| scary possibility nonetheless.
| zorked wrote:
| China is the #1 trading partner of nearly every country in
| the world. That's all you need to know about how bad they
| are doing.
| nabla9 wrote:
| Not really:
|
| https://data.worldbank.org/share/widget?contextual=aggregate.
| ..
| CyberRymden wrote:
| Do you actually think China has fairer courts, more open
| financial markets, and better business environment than the
| EU or US? For the longest time Hong Kong had to fill those
| gaps for China in order for the country to attract capital.
|
| Regardless, even if China does today the explanation still
| holds considering China only transformed a few decades before
| the book was written.
| JetSpiegel wrote:
| I think China is a worse country to live that the US or EU,
| but a better business environment. China's State Capitalism
| is simply more efficient than the neoliberalism hellscape
| that came up from the Soviet Union's collapse.
|
| I see the rest of the world becoming more similar to China
| than the other way around, unfortunately. The US is already
| a pseudo-Soviet state economically, and is on the brink of
| becoming a dictatorship on top of that.
| blackhawkC17 wrote:
| > I see the rest of the world becoming more similar to
| China than the other way around, unfortunately.
|
| I hope they enjoy the mediocrity that comes with state-
| dominated economies.
|
| > The US is already a pseudo-Soviet state economically.
|
| Maybe I'm blind, but I have no idea how someone looks at
| the USA and concludes this.
| JetSpiegel wrote:
| Extremely inequality that keeps increasing, political
| movements that try to change this are killed in the crib,
| a dying empire.
|
| Just because the Central Comittee is called Blackrock,
| doesn't mean the American economy is not being more and
| more centrally planned. Free Enterprise is dying.
|
| I mean economically, the political system is still "free"
| (less and less), it's not a dictatorship (yet).
| blackhawkC17 wrote:
| > Just because the Central Comittee is called Blackrock,
| doesn't mean the American economy is not being more and
| more centrally planned.
|
| Of course, you'll mention BlackRock, the never-ending
| boogeyman for people with little economic knowledge.
| jltsiren wrote:
| You have a short-term perspective. All kinds of governance
| structures can work for a single human lifetime, if they
| manage to get the right people to the right places. But those
| people will eventually retire and die. Good institutions make
| it more likely that their replacements will also be competent
| and have the right motivations and incentives.
|
| PRC has enjoyed ~45 years of stability and economic growth
| under four leaders. Until now, the leaders have retired
| voluntarily, and there has been an ordered transition of
| power to the successor. But Xi Jinping is clinging to power
| in a way his predecessors didn't. If he stays beyond 2027, it
| will be interesting to see if China can survive his death.
| Eumenes wrote:
| > Krugman
|
| Not sure I'd spend time on a Krugman book. He predicted in 1998
| that the internet would cease having an economic impact by 2005
| and that it would be no greater than fax machines. He's like
| the Neil deGrasse Tyson of economics.
| CyberRymden wrote:
| Krugman is controversial at times, but he is a serious
| economist. The quote is also taken out of two important
| contexts. 1. It was not a serious academic prediction but
| rather part of a fluff piece by the Times about future
| precitions. 2. The quote also exists in the context of a
| debate that was raging during the advent of the internet
| whether or not the internet would hyper charge productivity
| and economic growth. In hindsight, especially after the late
| 1990s, the truth is far closer to the fax machine rather than
| a new era of prosperity. The lack of visible productivity
| growth from a technology that has so visibly transformed our
| society is one of the bigger questions in economics today.
| AnimalMuppet wrote:
| The lack of _visible_ productivity growth. In particular,
| it 's not as visible as you expect _in the GDP statistics_.
|
| Take TV Guide, for instance. Now, if anybody watches
| broadcast television, they can use the internet to find out
| what's on when. Is that better or worse for users than
| having a paper TV guide? In many ways it's better. But it
| shows up in the GDP as a negative, because nobody's buying
| TV Guide any more.
|
| Or take Google. I can search for any information I want,
| for free. That creates immense value - immense in every
| sense _except_ the GDP, where it doesn 't show up at all,
| _because it 's free_.
|
| Wikipedia. Linux. gcc. The Wayback Machine. Even HN. All
| this is available to us, whenever we want it, for whatever
| purpose we want, for free. There's great value to us. Just
| nothing that shows up on the GDP statistics, because it's
| all free. (Yeah, I know, RedHat sells Linux, and Wikipedia
| asks for donations. They aren't Microsoft selling Windows
| and The World Book, though. You can still use them for
| free, and not get sued or jailed.)
| kiba wrote:
| Sure, there's a lot of value. There's also a lot of slops
| and negative value. These days I don't even use wikipedia
| that much even though I googled things constantly.
|
| GDP is a very gross measure of things to be sure, but
| also difficult to fake.
| blackhawkC17 wrote:
| These free things (Wikipedia, Linux, etc.) are sustained
| by a high GDP that translates to high incomes and, in
| turn, people willing to donate time and money for them to
| remain free.
|
| Let's try living in a country with a measly GDP per
| capita of $1,000 (Rwanda for example) and see how many
| free things we can get..
| AlbertCory wrote:
| > Krugman is controversial at times
|
| Kind of like saying Lysenko was controversial at times.
|
| He's not "controversial," he's just a bloviator. His
| credentials as a serious economist expired long ago when he
| signed up with the leftist team and agreed to never
| challenge them again, on anything.
|
| When you have to spend many words on explaining the
| "context" in which someone's quotes should be viewed, you
| are losing.
| ninjagoo wrote:
| > His credentials as a serious economist expired long ago
| when he signed up with the leftist team
|
| You might be (unpleasantly) surprised by the emphasis of
| the current year's nobel economics prize winners on the
| importance of societal institutions and the need for
| inclusivity to advance the wealth of nations :-)
| AlbertCory wrote:
| I'd be more surprised if you linked to any of Krugman's
| recent columns and I actually thought they were
| worthwhile.
| Eumenes wrote:
| Indeed. He is more politico and less economist these
| days: https://www.nytimes.com/column/paul-krugman
| cyberax wrote:
| > Kind of like saying Lysenko was controversial at times.
|
| This is BS. Krugman has very specific theories that made
| predictions validated by practice.
|
| Remember 2008? He made a prediction that an increase in
| the monetary base wouldn't cause inflation. This
| prediction was spectacularly confirmed. He also made a
| case for fiscal intervention: it wouldn't cause
| inflation, and it would speed up the recovery. And his
| prediction again was confirmed.
|
| More recently: he predicted that the inflation spike was
| transient, due to supply chain issues rather than
| fundamental changes. And he's again been vindicated.
| ninjagoo wrote:
| > He predicted in 1998 that the internet would cease having
| an economic impact by 2005 and that it would be no greater
| than fax machines
|
| The future is hard to predict. Using that as a reason to
| discount a Nobel-prize economist's economics-related work
| sounds like a gap in logic.
| nradov wrote:
| If economists can't predict the future then what good are
| they?
| cjalmeida wrote:
| If developers can't produce code without bugs, what good
| are they? /s
| fekunde wrote:
| After reading "Why Nations Fail", which I really enjoyed, I
| wondered whether we could develop an LLM with a wide enough
| context window where I could input the lessons from such books
| along with data and metrics about a specific country. Then, the
| AI could prescribe tangible solutions and policy
| recommendations tailored to that nation's unique situation. I'm
| curious what an AI system like that might look like. I also
| wonder if it's possible to experiment with a smaller-scale
| version of this concept using today's technology.
| JetSpiegel wrote:
| I thought the Chicago School had already proved blindly
| applying "policy recommendations" from on high was a receipt
| for disaster and misery, but sure, let's do the same with AI,
| this time it will surely work.
| nradov wrote:
| What's the point? We generally know what economic policies
| work. But they aren't put into effect due to ideology or
| special interests. This isn't a problem with a technical
| solution.
| omnee wrote:
| The rule of law is a key part of a nations success as argued by
| AJR. A very good exposition for the layman on the rule of law
| provided by Tom Bingham in the eponymous 'The Rule of
| Law):https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7734691-the-rule-of-
| law
|
| While the above is informed by the UK's constitutional
| arrangement, the 8 principles are near universal when
| considering nations that have or aim for The Rule of Law.
|
| The principles are:
|
| (1) The law must be accessible and so far as possible
| intelligible, clear and predictable.
|
| (2) Questions of legal right and liability should ordinarily be
| resolved by application of the law and not the exercise of
| discretion.
|
| (3) The laws of the land should apply equally to all, save to
| the extent that objective differences justify differentiation.
|
| (4) Ministers and public officers at all levels must exercise
| the powers conferred on them in good faith, fairly, for the
| purpose for which the powers were conferred, without exceeding
| the limits of such powers and not unreasonably.
|
| (5) The law must afford adequate protection of fundamental
| human rights.
|
| (6) Means must be provided for resolving, without prohibitive
| cost or inordinate delay, bona fide civil disputes which the
| parties themselves are unable to resolve.
|
| (7) The adjudicative procedures provided by the state should be
| fair.
|
| (8) The rule of law requires compliance by the state with its
| obligations in international law as in national law.
| nabla9 wrote:
| Well deserved. Acemoglu is the economist everyone respects.
|
| Very technical, but not for the sake of mathiness. His models
| have a meaning. They clarify thought and ideas.
| https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=l9Or8EMAAAAJ&hl=en
| NeutralForest wrote:
| Very cool to see public econ and history of economics
| represented! On top of the popular release, there's usually some
| advanced background info
| (https://www.nobelprize.org/uploads/2024/10/advanced-economic...)
| which is admittedly pretty massive but gives a lot of background
| about the Prize.
| doodlebugging wrote:
| Seems like one conclusion that can be drawn is that the
| indigenous people who get colonized should just shut up and enjoy
| their new reservations. The political, societal, and economic
| benefits of colonization were not intended to help them. Those
| changes were only to help those who did the colonizing build a
| new society that was free from the institutions that prevented
| them having a voice in how they were able to conduct their lives
| back in the old (European monarchy) country. Shit rolled downhill
| in the new country and the oppressed became the oppressor.
|
| It worked out in the end though for those who survived since they
| now have representative government with members elected who are
| beholden to the people and who remember the main lesson of the
| past - grassroots organization against oppression is the only
| tool that works to preserve freedom for the majority of the
| people in a country.
| sameoldtune wrote:
| Well it's kind of a moot point if we only care about "those who
| survive".
| whimsicalism wrote:
| i don't fully understand your post, but I don't think
|
| "grassroots organization against oppression is the only tool
| that works to preserve freedom for the majority of the people
| in a country"
|
| is a good takeaway for native americans and i struggle to
| imagine a counterfactual where native americans having this
| knowledge at the start of colonization would make any
| significant difference to the course of events
| inglor_cz wrote:
| In most settler-colonial situations during history, unless
| strict separation between races and nations was maintained, the
| conquerors intermingled with the conquered so thoroughly that
| you cannot tell them apart nowadays (Who is a Norman and who is
| an Anglo-Saxon? Who is a Roman and who is a Celt?). That
| included a lot of Amerindians in the US.
|
| This is pretty much the norm across the ages. You could
| probably say that it is wise from the vanquished to adapt at
| least partially the culture of the conquerors; after all, it
| might be better suited for victories in wars, and that was a
| major factor in survival until recently. (In some places, still
| is.)
| alephnerd wrote:
| > Seems like one conclusion that can be drawn is that the
| indigenous people who get colonized should just shut up and
| enjoy their new reservations
|
| Colonial institutions ARE extractive.
|
| This is a fairly prominent point in Acemoglu, Simon, and
| Robinson's works.
| CyberRymden wrote:
| Their seminal book literally opens with explaining how most
| colonial institutions were created to extract the wealth of
| natives and slaves, institutions that live on today through the
| authoritarian regimes that inherited them.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| > indigenous people who get colonized
|
| Academic talking points. Talk about the indigenous Irish who
| got "colonized" by the Celts, or the Britons who got
| "colonized" by the Saxons, Danes, and Normans, or the native
| American tribes who got "colonized" by other tribes, or the
| Gauls who got "colonized" by migrant tribes.
|
| The fact is, everyone is on "stolen land" including the
| "indigenous." The Spaniards were more exploitive than the
| English and other northern Europeans (look up "Potosi"), but
| that doesn't make the latter perfect.
|
| The New World was going to be integrated with the Old World
| sooner or later, no matter who did it.
| zxcb1 wrote:
| I, for one, am waiting for the field of economics to be colonized
| by AI folks
| kome wrote:
| Terrible decision. Very bad and sloppy economics, a simplified
| version of what sociology and political science have been doing
| much better for over 40 years, as if before these crucial
| contributions we had no idea that institutions, forms of power
| and social conflict affect economic outcomes.
|
| Branko Milanovic has aptly and rather amusingly defined
| Acemoglu's naive theorizing as "Wikipedia entries with
| regressions" https://glineq.blogspot.com/2014/08/my-take-on-
| acemoglu-robi... and he is right.
|
| Acemoglu's strand of institutional social science is known to be
| painfully racist and clueless about realities on the ground
| https://africasacountry.com/2016/09/africa-why-western-econo...
| The narrative that you can get economic growth with "good
| institutions" is a fable, and cases like China are also
| completely outside their narrative. Not only is their narrative
| historically inaccurate, if not ideological, it can't explain why
| Western economies like the US have prospered despite being as
| corrupt as China is today.
| alephnerd wrote:
| > defined Acemoglu's naive theorizing
|
| It sounds like you are parroting arguments without explaining
| those arguments.
|
| "Wikipedia entries with regressions" is a facile argument that
| can be applied to Picketty and Milanovic as well.
|
| Plus, Milanovic congratulated AJR and agreed to a number of
| their initial works in the space (which are the ones that won
| them the Nobel)
|
| > The narrative that you can get economic growth with "good
| institutions" is a fable
|
| Bullshit. We don't invest in Uganda or Kenya because we know we
| won't be able to get a contract enforced.
|
| A major reason FDI to PRC skyrocketed in the 2000s was because
| individual provinces worked on building SEZs with ease of
| contract enforcement, as well as a number of harmonizing
| business regulation reforms (eg. the Guiding Cases Project).
|
| And that same FDI outflow from China that we are now seeing is
| due to the opaqueness that now permeates the judicial and
| regulatory environemnt in China after a number of backwards
| reforms in 2018-22.
|
| > it can't explain why Western economies like the US have
| prospered despite being as corrupt as China is today.
|
| Over a century of major reforms and regulations.
|
| This was a major reason why the PRC began the Guiding Cases
| project.
| nabla9 wrote:
| Here is what your boy Branko Milanovic says:
| https://x.com/BrankoMilan/status/1845850368221032590
|
| > Good decision. They deserve it. Obviously, there is a lot to
| disagree with in their work, but AJR initial papers were
| excellent, and broadened economic work to include politics and
| economic history. Congratulations!
| blackhawkC17 wrote:
| There's nothing racist about stating that strong institutions
| and rule of law lead to economic success.
|
| It's an obvious truth, which many Africans reject for some
| reason. I'm Nigerian, and my country is a clear example of how
| excessive corruption and dependence on a natural resource (oil)
| makes a country mediocre.
| alephnerd wrote:
| Dan Rogger published an interesting paper 13 years ago
| digging into this from a Civil Service standpoint [0]
|
| Some of the recommendations were implemented, but it's still
| very much a work in progress.
|
| [0] - https://www.danrogger.com/files/survey%20reports/Nigeri
| a%20C...
| AlbertCory wrote:
| The "Nobel Prize in Economics" was not one of the original ones
| endowed by Alfred Nobel. As the name implies, it was created by a
| bank.
|
| Is there any reason Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, and
| Elon Musk can't endow a Prize in Computer Science? That would end
| the controversy about whether AI is "Physics."
| kelseyfrog wrote:
| It's not even a non-original Nobel. It's simply "Not a Nobel
| Prize".
|
| The headline should read "Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, and
| James A. Robinson won Not a Nobel Prize in Economics."
|
| We shouldn't validate the idea that one can earn a Nobel in
| economics. It's simply not possible because such a prize does
| not exist. Shame on economists for attempting to legitimize
| economics using the memory of Alfred Nobel. It is low, even for
| them.
| jldugger wrote:
| We already have the Turing Award, and a prize sponsored by
| Google.
| doe_eyes wrote:
| > Is there any reason Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg,
| and Elon Musk can't endow a Prize in Computer Science?
|
| Even without searching, I'm sure they back a number of
| organizations that do endow various awards, scholarships, and
| so on. I doubt they could come up with a "flagship" one that
| would be as prestigious as the Nobel Prize, though. Our
| attitudes toward modern-day "industrialists" and their pet
| projects are quite different today. Whatever controversies
| surround the Nobel Prize, they would be many times worse for
| the Bezos-Gates-Zuck-Musk Medal of Merit.
| AlbertCory wrote:
| This seems kinda confused. The Nobel is now controversial
| because after all, Nobel invented dynamite and he wanted to
| expunge his guilt. Yet you said it was "prestigious" -- but
| you want to cancel that, regardless?
|
| But somehow the Nobel Prize in Computer Science would be too
| controversial even given all that.
|
| OK, I get that you don't like Bezos-Gates-Zuck-Musk. Maybe
| you're just jealous.
| doe_eyes wrote:
| > The Nobel is now controversial because after all, Nobel
| invented dynamite and he wanted to expunge his guilt.
|
| It's not controversial for that reason. It's actually a
| fantastic origin story for the prize, especially since he
| arranged for it on his deathbed.
|
| > OK, I get that you don't like Bezos-Gates-Zuck-Musk.
|
| Huh?
| blackhawkC17 wrote:
| > The Breakthrough Prize, renowned as the "Oscars of Science",
| recognizes the world's top scientists working in the
| fundamental sciences - the disciplines that ask the biggest
| questions and find the deepest explanations.
|
| > _Each prize is $3 million_ and presented in the fields of
| Life Sciences, Fundamental Physics and Mathematics.
|
| > The Breakthrough Prizes were founded by Sergey Brin,
| Priscilla Chan and Mark Zuckerberg, Yuri and Julia Milner, and
| Anne Wojcicki. The Prizes have been sponsored by the personal
| foundations established by Sergey Brin, Priscilla Chan and Mark
| Zuckerberg, Ma Huateng, Jack Ma, Yuri and Julia Milner, and
| Anne Wojcicki.
|
| https://breakthroughprize.org/About
| nabla9 wrote:
| Not being the original does not make it any less meaningful.
| Repeating the same "Not real Nobel" spiel every time Nobel
| price in Economics is discussed as it is some kind of
| refutation is silly.
|
| >Is there any reason
|
| Yes there is. Nobel committee has accepted Nobel in economics
| as one of the Nobel prices. Its in their website, in their
| documents and its given out in the same ceremony in Stockholm.
| Laureates are selected by the Royal Swedish Academy of
| Sciences.
|
| "created by a bank "
|
| Sveriges Riksbank is the central bank of Sweden. It's not a
| just some random private bank.
| aanet wrote:
| Absolutely chuffed to hear that Daren Acemoglu (one of my fav
| econ writers), Simon Johnson and Robinson won the Nobel memorial
| prize.
|
| Acemoglu has been a brilliant and prolific econ writer, and I
| enjoy his exposition. Many have commented on his "Why Nations
| Fail", and rightly so. More recently, he also wrote "Power and
| Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and
| Prosperity".
|
| I'm more interested in his thoughts on tech and development (than
| on instituions and democracy), and he doesn't disappoint.
|
| More topically for HN folks, he wrote on "The Simple
| Macroeconomics of AI" [1]. Unlike many contemporary researchers /
| writers (incl. Ethan Mollick) who are completely ga-ga over
| prospects of AI-driven economy over the next decade, Acemoglu is
| more reserved.
|
| His top findings: Modest Productivity Gains:
| Estimates suggest TFP growth from AI will be less than 0.55% to
| 0.71% over 10 years, limited by the complexity of tasks.
| Hard vs. Easy Tasks: AI's impact on "hard-to-learn" tasks, which
| lack clear metrics and are context-sensitive, will likely produce
| smaller gains than on simpler tasks. Wage Effects:
| AI's productivity benefits may not substantially raise wages,
| particularly for low-skill workers. Inequality
| Impact: AI is unlikely to reduce labor income inequality
| significantly and may widen the gap between capital and labor
| incomes. Task Complementarity: AI could enhance
| productivity by complementing human workers, though benefits may
| be limited if task prices fall. Role of New Tasks:
| New AI-enabled tasks could boost productivity, but some may also
| create negative social value, such as manipulative content.
| Automation Limitations: Extensive-margin automation may not lead
| to substantial wage increases if displacement effects outweigh
| productivity benefits. Consumer Welfare: Increases
| in GDP may overstate consumer welfare improvements due to
| investment's impact on consumption. Capital-Labor
| Dynamics: AI's use may increase the capital share of income,
| further shifting income away from labor. Investment
| Response: AI-related productivity gains will likely trigger only
| modest capital stock increases.
|
| [Caveat: above summary generated by ChatGPT, sorry!]
|
| I'm cautious -- neither too optimistic (although the engineer in
| me wants to believe in the AI-driven future) nor too pessimistic
| (but I'm also very, very realistic in broad adoption and benefits
| dissemination of AI).
|
| His recent chat with FT [2] is also illuminating (Sep 2024).
|
| ---
|
| [1]
| https://economics.mit.edu/sites/default/files/2024-04/The%20...
| (Apr 2024)
|
| [2] FT audio interview -
| https://www.ft.com/content/e865a777-501a-4417-839e-dffd4b520...
| (Sep 2024)
| jncfhnb wrote:
| > Wage Effects: AI's productivity benefits may not
| substantially raise wages, particularly for low-skill workers.
|
| Yeah no shit. It's going to spike them down hard.
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