IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/mab/wpaper/12.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Unbearable Lightness of the Economics-Made-Fun Genre

Author

Listed:
  • Peter Spiegler

Abstract

Several commentators have argued that the Economics-Made-Fun (“EMF”) genre contains very little actual economics. As such, it would seem that criticisms of EMF do not apply economics more broadly. In this paper I take a contrary view, arguing that, in fact, at a deep conceptual level, the engine of EMF analyses is precisely the engine of mainstream economics. Specifically, I argue that both EMF and mainstream economics rest on a conceptual foundation known as the Principal of the Substitution of Similars (“PSS”). Understanding how PSS leads EMF practitioners to make claims well beyond what is warranted by their analysis also offers insight into how PSS leaves mainstream economists in danger of overestimating the power and scope of their analyses. I explore the consequences of such problems through an example of economic analysis of the U.S. housing market in the lead-up to the recent financial crisis.

Suggested Citation

  • Peter Spiegler, "undated". "The Unbearable Lightness of the Economics-Made-Fun Genre," Working Papers 12, University of Massachusetts Boston, Economics Department.
    • Handle: RePEc:mab:wpaper:12
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://repec.umb.edu/RePEc/files/spiegler_unbearablelightness.pdf
    File Function: Revised version, 2011
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Donald MacKenzie, 2008. "An Engine, Not a Camera: How Financial Models Shape Markets," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262633671, April.
    2. Zaloom, Caitlin, 2006. "Out of the Pits," University of Chicago Press Economics Books, University of Chicago Press, number 9780226978130, Febrero.
    3. Aaron Steelman, 2005. "Book review : The relentless pursuit of incentives. \\"Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything\\" by Stephen D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner," Econ Focus, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, vol. 9(Sum), pages 46-47.
    4. Karl E. Case & Robert J. Shiller, 2003. "Is There a Bubble in the Housing Market?," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 34(2), pages 299-362.
    5. Maas,Harro, 2005. "William Stanley Jevons and the Making of Modern Economics," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521827126, September.
    6. Brian A. Jacob & Steven D. Levitt, 2003. "Rotten Apples: An Investigation of the Prevalence and Predictors of Teacher Cheating," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 118(3), pages 843-877.
    7. Vincent Lépinay, 2011. "Codes of Finance. Engineering Derivatives in a Global Bank," Post-Print hal-02057257, HAL.
    8. Mark Duggan & Steven D. Levitt, 2002. "Winning Isn't Everything: Corruption in Sumo Wrestling," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(5), pages 1594-1605, December.
    9. John DiNardo, 2007. "Interesting Questions in Freakonomics," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 45(4), pages 973-1000, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jamie Peck, 2016. "Economic Rationality Meets Celebrity Urbanology: Exploring Edward Glaeser's City," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 40(1), pages 1-30, January.
    2. Reddy, Sanjay G., 2012. "Randomise This! On Poor Economics," Review of Agrarian Studies, Foundation for Agrarian Studies, vol. 2(2), December.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Chang-Tai Hsieh & Enrico Moretti, 2006. "Did Iraq Cheat the United Nations? Underpricing, Bribes, and the Oil for Food Program," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 121(4), pages 1211-1248.
    2. Dan Bernhardt & Steven Heston, 2010. "Point Shaving In College Basketball: A Cautionary Tale For Forensic Economics," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 48(1), pages 14-25, January.
    3. Marie Claire Villeval, 2019. "Comportements (non) éthiques et stratégies morales," Revue économique, Presses de Sciences-Po, vol. 70(6), pages 1021-1046.
    4. Quang Nguyen, 2017. "Do Natural Disasters Open a Window of Opportunity for Corruption?," Journal of Development Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 53(1), pages 156-172, January.
    5. Stefano DellaVigna & Eliana La Ferrara, 2010. "Detecting Illegal Arms Trade," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 2(4), pages 26-57, November.
    6. Helmut M. Dietl & Markus Lang & Stephan Werner, 2010. "Corruption in Professional Sumo: An Update on the Study of Duggan and Levitt," Journal of Sports Economics, , vol. 11(4), pages 383-396, August.
    7. Gould, Eric D. & Kaplan, Todd R., 2011. "Learning unethical practices from a co-worker: The peer effect of Jose Canseco," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(3), pages 338-348, June.
    8. Dahlberg, Matz & Lundqvist, Heléne & Mörk, Eva, 2008. "Intergovernmental grants and bureaucratic power," Working Paper Series 2008:17, IFAU - Institute for Evaluation of Labour Market and Education Policy.
    9. Paul Carrillo, 2013. "Testing for Fraud in the Residential Mortgage Market: How Much Did Early-Payment-Defaults Overpay for Housing?," The Journal of Real Estate Finance and Economics, Springer, vol. 47(1), pages 36-64, July.
    10. Garicano, Luis & Palacios-Huerta, Ignacio, 2005. "Sabotage in Tournaments: Making the Beautiful Game a Bit Less Beautiful," CEPR Discussion Papers 5231, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    11. Herbert J. Schuetze, 2006. "Income splitting among the self‐employed," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 39(4), pages 1195-1220, November.
    12. Robert Chernomas & Ian Hudson, 2013. "Steven Levitt on Abortion and Crime: Old Economics in New Bottles," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 72(3), pages 675-700, July.
    13. Canay Özden-Schilling, 2016. "The infrastructure of markets: From electric power to electronic data," Economic Anthropology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 3(1), pages 68-80, January.
    14. Helmut Dietl & Markus Lang & Stephan Werner, 2008. "Corruption in Professional Sumo: An Update on Duggan and Levitt's Study," Working Papers 0019, University of Zurich, Center for Research in Sports Administration (CRSA), revised Jun 2009.
    15. Dina Mayzlin & Yaniv Dover & Judith Chevalier, 2014. "Promotional Reviews: An Empirical Investigation of Online Review Manipulation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(8), pages 2421-2455, August.
    16. Bilen, Eren & Matros, Alexander, 2021. "Online cheating amid COVID-19," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 182(C), pages 196-211.
    17. Leonid Krasnozhon & John Levendis, 2018. "Weekend racer: cheating and self-governance in road racing," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 19(1), pages 75-90, February.
    18. Jakob Svensson, 2006. "Osiem pytań na temat korupcji," Gospodarka Narodowa. The Polish Journal of Economics, Warsaw School of Economics, issue 9, pages 77-106.
    19. William R. Morgan, 2023. "Finance Must Be Defended: Cybernetics, Neoliberalism and Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG)," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(4), pages 1-21, February.
    20. Kuchler, Theresa & Piazzesi, Monika & Ströbel, Johannes, 2022. "Housing Market Expectations," CEPR Discussion Papers 17158, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Methodology; Popular Economics; William Stanley Jevons; Ontology; Anthropology of Finance;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • B13 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought through 1925 - - - Neoclassical through 1925 (Austrian, Marshallian, Walrasian, Wicksellian)
    • B41 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - Economic Methodology - - - Economic Methodology
    • Z13 - Other Special Topics - - Cultural Economics - - - Economic Sociology; Economic Anthropology; Language; Social and Economic Stratification

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:mab:wpaper:12. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Harry Konstantinidis (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deumbus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.