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u/pipesthepipes · 1 pointr/AskSocialScience

Describing the best form of taxation involves a combination of economics and values. The economics asks "how does the policy change the way people behave?" which is the positive side of the question. The value side of things asks "is that consequence something we want?" which is the normative side of the question.

The economic, or positive side of things is completely game for social science, and is the subject of a great deal of research for different tax systems. The normative stuff we talk about sometimes, but we try to be very cautious about separating values from predictions and only say a policy is definitely a bad idea when we're pretty sure society views the consequences of the policy as unacceptable.

From a positive side, I don't think the arguments that are made to support the Flat Tax hold too much water. I don't know of any strong evidence that it would induce a great deal of growth. But I also don't know of strong proof that it doesn't. So positive economics maybe doesn't have too much to say here. (Someone correct me if I'm wrong, and point me towards a paper or two (I'm talking about research on the Flat Tax specifically, not just the ETI literature)).

From a normative angle, it comes down to the following question: your policy will probably make the rich better off (they'll have lower tax liabilities) and the poor worse off (they'll have higher tax liabilities). The rich might be more productive and this could mean more income for everyone. Is it worth it to you? Given that the research on the responses of the rich finds that they've been pretty small in the past, I think the flat tax is a bad idea. But there's some values there that have nothing to do with social science.

On the other hand, simplification of the tax code in a way that approximately maintains the progressivity of the system would be a welcome change. Taxes are way too complicated, and a large literature on salience suggests that you could make people better off by making their choices easier to understand. (Incidentally, salience is right in the middle of my research.) Some of the arguments around the flat tax take this route, and this is something I agree with. Even though I don't think the flat tax specifically is a good idea at all.

A further complication is that sometimes when people say the flat tax they mean/don't mean a Negative Income Tax. I think that an NIT is not entirely a bad idea if you're going to do a flat tax, because it would allow you to make sure the system is still progressive. What I've written above mostly applies to the flat tax without a NIT built in.

If you're interested in hearing the full debate, instead of what your professor (who, by the way, isn't representatives of economists who study tax) thinks, I would recommend this book.

Edited for citations and typos. There's probably still some typos. Oh well.

u/Revue_of_Zero · 3 pointsr/AskSocialScience

Are you asking about why certain people appear more motivated and/or take pleasure in learning and seeking information and others care less, are bored by educational activities and have little patience for learning? Or do you mean literally suffering from thinking and assimilating new information, which would suggest a pathology?

I am not entirely convinced the answers provided until now actually reply your question, unless I am misreading/misinterpreting it. Not that the information provided is necessarily false, although there are elements I would contend do not actually concern what you have in mind/have observed, and some other elements I would consider to be unnecessarily pathologizing and/or to concern other behaviors.

---

For example, we could talk about the relationship between technology and attention spans or the ability to focus, which are required to learn. True, multitasking is an overstated ability and that humans tend to lose efficiency when multitasking.

Having cell phones and internet-connect computers might not help to remain focused on a single task, but that also depends on or interacts with other factors such as motivation and self-control. Cell phones do not have agency in the matter. However, these are general considerations, especially when considering the democratization of technologies such as smartphones and the Internet: if they have an effect on attention spans, these effects should concern more than "some" people around you and us. Quoting Gazzaley and Rosen:

>It should be clear that if you are having trouble keeping yourself from constantly being interrupted by technology, you are not alone: you are a typical modern-day high-tech user.

Now, are our attention spans getting lower because of technology? Actually, does the question actually make sense and therefore answerable as is? The thing is, there are different kinds of motivation (e.g. avoidance vs approach), different kinds of attention (e.g. selective, sustained, focused, ...), different contexts and tasks, and then we also have to consider also working memory, etc.

For illustration, Gazzaley and Rosen argue the following:

>We have shown how our brains, despite their highly evolved goal-setting abilities, are ancient in some fundamental ways: our information-seeking behavior is an extension of primitive food-foraging behaviors, and our limitations in cognitive control are comparable to that of many other animals. It is our high-level goal-setting abilities, coupled with our drive to seek information, that lead us to engage in interference-inducing behaviors that put pressure on those limitations in our cognitive control. This conflict results in goal interference, which in turn leads to a broad array of negative consequences that we experience in our daily lives. But cognitive abilities are not the only factors that influence real-world behavior. Behavior is contextual; it is a product of not just how we think, but also what is going on around us. Our environment interacts with our cognition in complex ways to yield our behavior.

Calcott and Berman have the following to say about the interaction between attention and motivation depending on context:

>Attentional shifts are pervasive in our everyday lives, and are important for adaptively responding to a changing environment. How people attend to environmental stimuli can depend, in large part, on their current motivational state. These studies are important because they underscore the importance of considering the context when studying motivation-related attentional shifts, both in a broader sense (in terms of the whole block) and a narrower sense (in terms of the previous trial).

Relatedly, is our self-control a limited resource or not? Ego depletion is an influential concept when talking about self-regulation, however there have been recent challenges to the existence of such a phenomenon or to its strength. The idea is the following, as explained by Friese et al.:

>First, self-control is a domain-general construct. People who failed in self-control in one domain often appeared to do so in other domains as well. Second, exerting self-control has a psychic cost that increases chances of self-control failure in further attempts [...]

>Ego depletion refers to the phenomenon that people perform poorer on a self control task after having already engaged in a previous task requiring self-control.

However, for now, the question remains open:

>Whether or not ego depletion is real is subject to great debate. Our analysis suggests that the critical evidence is unlikely to convince proponents that ego depletion does not exist. Likewise, the supporting evidence is unlikely to convince skeptics that ego depletion does exist. Better empiricism and better theory are needed to move the field forward and find more conclusive answers to the question whether, when, and why ego depletion does (not) exist.

I will not comment as much on the concept of demand resistance, which I am not aware being a concept with much scientific literature behind it. I would suggest that the idea appears to translate observations related to the well-documented psychological phenomenon of reactance, which occurs when people perceive some sort of limitation to their "freedom", such as when they receive an order, but not only (even "suggestions" can trigger reactance), and to certain personality traits (there are, for example, people who are more or less reactant, neurotic, etc.).

---

I would suggest reading what I have described in the past regarding intrinsic and extrinsic motivation in the context of learning. To quote Ryan and Deci (as I do in that thread):

>In Self-Determination Theory (SDT; Deci & Ryan, 1985) we distinguish between different types of motivation based on the different reasons or goals that give rise to an action. The most basic distinction is between intrinsic motivation, which refers to doing something because it is inherently interesting or enjoyable, and extrinsic motivation, which refers to doing something because it leads to a separable outcome. Over three decades of research has shown that the quality of experience and performance can be very different when one is behaving for intrinsic versus extrinsic reasons.

Motivation is important for many of our behaviors and mental processes, such that unmotivated people are likelier to treat information heuristically rather than systematically (see the elaboration likelihood model).

Putting motivation aside, certain people have more or less self-control, have better or worse working memory, better or worse attention. However, there is evidence that allow to argue that these capacities can be trained and are, at least, in part developed throughout childhood (and life) and depend not only on parenting, but also other environmental factors - such that self-control can also be understood in relation to social control, and that personality traits are not entirely fixed). Therefore, we still have to take into consideration motivation.

---

Bottom line: Not everyone share the same motivation to learning, and not everyone has developed "autonomous" motivation and associated values, such as learning for the pleasure of learning or valuing learning to achieve a desirable goals (e.g. becoming a doctor to help people), and therefore some people have less interest in devoting time and resources to learning. And, of course, certain people can have less self-control, weaker working memory, less patience, whatever. Lacking motivation to improve these capacities, the ability itself to sustain attention on learning is reduced, making learning unpleasant or making distractions more attractive. All of this interacts, and perpetuates itself (e.g. frustration, demotivation, etc.).

u/cinemabaroque · 6 pointsr/AskSocialScience

This is a very difficult question because it is rather over-broad and the answer is different in various times and places.

In terms of classical notions of development (which I'll use as a stand in for your term 'economic prosperity' and which, broadly speaking, implies greater access to commodities and small scale capital goods like washing machines for everybody in a region/nation-state) the two concepts are very much tied together as it is easy to see how mercantilism, which is a sort of proto-capitalist system, arose in Europe alongside increased notions of individual rights to speech, property, and political participation. So in this sense there is definitely a relationship but it is hard to say exactly what that relationship is. It is unlikely, in the face of evidence from the last 150 years, that there is a direct causal relationship between them. It does not seem that a nation can achieve independence, write a constitution ensuring rights to free speech, and therefor expect economic development and growth as a consequence. Likewise, it does not necessarily follow that economic growth necessarily results in greater freedom of speech. The most likely answer is that underlying conditions that buttress free speech, like an active citizenry and strong social institutions, are also positive factors in economic development.

However, there are significant counter-examples if we look outside of Europe and North America. China and Vietnam both come to mind as countries that don't have strong free speech protections but have done very well economically over the last several decades.

It is increasingly seeming that the classical model of development, based on the success of the US and the large, heavily developed economies of Western Europe, is no longer very applicable to poorer nations that lack the capacity to directly compete with the larger and more entrenched markets of the West. Hence the reason that many under-developed nations have done best to follow their own path in the manner of India or China rather than attempt to replicate the past success of the core economies. In this sense it does seem to me that there is less of a relationship today between personal freedom and economic growth than was the case in the 1700 and 1800s.

Sources:

Theories of Development: Contentions, Arguments, Alternatives by Peet and Hardwick

Vincent Ferraro, "Dependency Theory: An Introduction"

u/Integralds · 10 pointsr/AskSocialScience

This is definitely the right sub. A few notes:

  1. You can approach applied economics papers with just a semester of economic statistics / econometrics and a semester of intermediate theory. Applied papers can be either micro or macro. For example, at this point you should be able to comfortably read Mankiw, Romer, and Weil (1992).

    Most applied economics paper boil down to I ran a regression of Y on X. The key question you have to ask yourself is, "Do I buy their identification?" To assess such claims, you don't need much more than a semester or two of econometrics and critical thinking. Sure, some of the more obscure estimators might be beyond your ability, but the broad swath of applied papers boil down to some kind of instrumental variables regression.

    A somewhat more advanced paper that should still be readable to you is Gali and Gertler (1999).

    The game here is: write down your model to be estimated; argue that you have a good identification strategy; show us the tables of coefficients; argue that your results are robust; tell me why I should care. The trick is clean identification and economically & statistically significant results.

    Resources: your companion here should be Mostly Harmless Econometrics.

  2. Then there are theory papers, which can be micro or macro. These will generally set up an economic model and prove some results analytically. The limiting factor in reading them will be your mathematical maturity: here is where the real analysis and topology come into play. A typical theory paper (that you cannot probably read comfortably) might look like Mas-Colell (1975).

    The game here is: write down a model; derive some mathematical results (typically about certain partial derivatives, cross-elasticities, or existence of equilibria); tell me why I should care. The trick is to write down a model that makes sense and bring results that are applicable, either to other theoretical problems or that can be applied to practical problems.

    Resources: MWG is probably good preparation for these papers, at least in form.

  3. Third, there are computational papers. These tend to be macro, and within macro tend to be oriented around business cycle analysis. Here there is a lot of assumed background knowledge: macroeconomists expect to see models written down in particular ways and have certain preconceived expectations of what your "results" should look like. Again, I don't think these are approachable right out of the undergrad curriculum. I certainly could not follow the arguments of Ireland (2004) when I was an undergrad. I could barely work through the first few pages of Clarida, Gali and Gertler (1999).

    The game here is: write down a model; solve it approximately near the steady-state; simulate the model; show me some dynamics around the steady-state; show me how the model reacts to shocks; tell me why I should care. The trick is: write down a sensible model that captures the phenomena of interest, and show how the economy reacts to the shocks that you hit the economy with. Sometimes you want to show how policy can counteract those shocks.

    Resources: while reading a few chapters of Sargent & Ljungqvist is nice, there is still a lot of assumed background when reading macro that makes these papers a bit forbidding if you haven't had graduate training in the subject. Yes, I find it deplorable, but that's how the profession has evolved.

    A fantastic place to start in macro is Models of Business Cycles. You can probably read it if you know a little calculus and have taken a course in intermediate macro.

    By the way, all of the papers I've linked to are "classics" and are worth perusing, even if you don't fully grasp what's going on in them. I'm biased, so you've gotten a sampling of macro papers. Let me know if you want details/context on any of the papers I linked to.

    My deepest apologies if, in these summaries, I have offended the sensibilities of my applied and theoretical brethren. I'm stepping a bit out of the bounds of my field (money & macro). :)

    (Anyone know of good "classics" in applied micro that are readable? Card-Krueger (1994) is probably readable, as is Angrist (1990). But I'm not familiar with the classics in labor and IO.)
u/fortmac · 1 pointr/AskSocialScience

This is the first book I read - Basic Economics By Thomas Sowell. The author is quite libertarian (which I am not) but I don't remember the book being particularly radical. I read the book 10 yrs ago but it stood out, definitely piqued my interest, and really helped things 'click' for me regarding basic economic theory. Diving directly into a micro 101 textbook or just reading 100 econ blogs would not be advised as you don't learn the basics and traditions. Give yourself a reason to be interested and the rest will follow.

Free to Choose is pretty valuable, though it can be more a work of political-economy. Freakonomics is also great because its easy/fun to read and gives you a good understand of just how super valuable numbers are.

These are all on the light side and not 'textbook' quality; however, I'm sure they'll pique your interest, give you a good foundation, and the rest will follow.

u/lord_dumbello · 0 pointsr/AskSocialScience

Here's my suggestions:

  • Freakonomics is a fun introduction to economics. It has some caveats (most high-level economists disagree with the book) but I think it's a great way to get excited about economic concepts and see some of the things you can do with them.
  • There are a bunch of excellent topic-focused lighter-reading economics books such as: Wikinomics, The Wal-Mart Effect, and Predictably Irrational, to name a few.
  • I know you said "pop-sci" but if you're into mysteries at all then there's a fun series of two books written by a pair of economists called Murder at the Margin and Fatal Equilibrium. The books are murder mysteries in which the main character solves the mystery using economic principles. They are a little silly but an entertaining read.
  • If you're interested in something a little more hands on there are a number of free (low expectation) online introductory courses. The University of Illinois in particular is offering a completely free course in Principles of Microeconomics. It's fairly unorthodox and should be both fun and informative. I highly recommend it from personal experience.

    Hope that helps!
u/NellucEcon · 3 pointsr/AskSocialScience

I'm not sure about an online course, but I can recommend some econometrics textbooks.

Goldberger's "A Course in Econometrics" is well written and covers a lot of important ideas. I especially like his treatment of residual regression in chapter 17 (I think): https://www.amazon.com/Course-Econometrics-Arthur-S-Goldberger/dp/0674175441/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1465847395&sr=8-1&keywords=goldberger+econometrics

Many people teach regression as minimizing the squared residual from a linear model. While that's a correct way to think about it, in my opinion it is easier to understand regression as performing matrix algebra on a data-generating process. That is, a linear model says that x causes y according to

y = xb + e

where y is an observed column vector of length n (for number of observations) x is an observed matrix, possibly including a constant, e is unobserved, and b is a parameter (vector) to be estimated. Well, just do algebra on it.

you want to "move" x to the left-hand side, but x doesn't have an inverse. Instead, multiply both sides by the transpose of x, which is x', and then you have x'x in front of b. If this can be inverted, then multiply both side by it's inverse. (x'x)^-1 x'x cancels, yielding

(x'x)^-1 x'y=b+(x'x)^-1 x'e

if (x'x)^-1 x'e=0, then you have just solved for b. In expectation, this is true under the OLS assumptions, and as the sample gets large, it is approximately true in sample. This is why OLS can recover b if the error is orthogonal to x. If not, then OLS gives you biased estimates of the causal parameter b.

Regression algebra is indeed quite simple. This makes regression algebra satisfying -- you are doing something extremely powerful without requiring comparably sophisticated mathematical technology.

Anyway, Goldberger's treatment of regression algebra really clicked for me, especially making sense of residual regression (why "all else equal" makes sense). You don't need to read every chapter. Chapter 17 works pretty well on it's own, for example. But the other stuff is useful as well.


"Mostly Harmless Econometrics" is not too hard to read without coursework forcing you to focus: https://www.amazon.com/Mostly-Harmless-Econometrics-Empiricists-Companion/dp/0691120358/ref=pd_sim_14_6?ie=UTF8&dpID=51qgNUMbyXL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR104%2C160_&refRID=NY8XZVBAX0ZHXXV69SAT

You might as well get Wooldridge's graduate level textbook on panel data econometrics -- you'll probably need to buy it in grad school anyway. It's hard to make sense of until until you've been forced to work through a lot of the math. After your first quarter or two of graduate level course work you should be comfortable enough with the material to teach yourself anything in this textbook. Before that though and you might not have the discipline or background to make heads or tails of this: https://www.amazon.com/Econometric-Analysis-Cross-Section-Panel/dp/0262232197/ref=sr_1_7?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1465847582&sr=1-7&keywords=wooldridge

u/[deleted] · 10 pointsr/AskSocialScience

Economics is a pretty broad subject, is there anything in particular you're interested in? I'll list some sources that I find interesting and that have spurred my interest in economics.


Behavioral Economics

  • Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely, MIT Professor
    -One of the most engaging books about economics I've read.


  • Freakonomics by Steven Levitt
    -Applying economics to every day life, has a good chapter on how the average crack dealer makes less than minimum wage.

    Macroeconomics
    (Big picture economics)

    Austrian School
    (Popularized, not originated, with Friedrich Hayek and generally take a laissez faire approach to the economy)

  • Relevant reddit thread from about a month ago
  • Relevant youtube video re: Hayek vs Keynes
  • Wikipedia

    Keynesian School
    (Based on the ideas of John Maynard Keynes, advocates government intervention in the economy to smooth the otherwise turbulent waves of the business cycle)

  • The Return of Depression Era Economics, Paul Krugman
    -Haven't read this one, but Krugman is one of the more famous Keynesians.
  • Wikipedia

    Chicago School

    Notable Economists:

  • Milton Friedman : Monetarism,
  • Gary Becker : Human Capital,
  • Richard Thaler : Most notable for Behavioral Finance and his Anomalies series of papers in the Journal of Economic Perspectives.

    Microeconomics
    (How households / firms make decisions to allocate limited resources. Couple sub categories here, mainly Game Theory and some types of Behavioral Economics)

  • I don't know many casual books that talk about microeconomics. Most of my knowledge is derived from academia. I can recommend good textbooks but I don't think you'd be interested in reading those.

    Casual Books about Economics

  • Economics in One Lesson
    -Pretty sure this is available online for free.
  • Naked Economics
    -Read this a long time ago before I started seriously pursuing economics. Decent introduction to things like opportunity cost and other simple economic concepts.


    Because there is so much information available about economics you might feel a little overwhelmed. That's fine, the important thing is to always keep an open mind and not to dismiss certain theories / information based on a few people's opinions. For example, a lot of people bash on Keyensians these days (and mostly for good reason) but it's important to note that Keyensian economics as its practiced today is vastly different than what John Maynard Keynes had in mind in the early to mid 1900s. Just keep an open mind and form your own opinion.

    I'm sure I forgot a ton of stuff so hopefully other people can fill in what I missed.
u/pzone · 19 pointsr/AskSocialScience

>Empirical methodology is about running regressions in order to establish causal or at least predictive relationships within the dataset.

Perhaps this is what empirical rigor means in practice, but the view that this is what empirical rigor should mean is ultimately untenable.

Josh Angrist might re-assert /u/OMG_TRIGGER_WARNING's question like this: it doesn't matter if X predicts Y almost with certainty, if tomorrow some policy change will cause the relationship to fall apart entirely. Causality is more important than correlation, because causality is the only true test of an actual economic model. Moreover, causality isn't something that you get from matching your data with some DSGE equations, finding p<.00001 with Newey-West standard errors, then passing a Hausman test. Unless you have a plausible quasi-experiment with a tight chain of causality, you have nothing except a statistical relationship. You can't even identify a diagram like X -> Y -> Z -> X.

There is a sort of nihilism in that worldview. If someone makes a valid criticism that breaks your chain of causality, there's no honest response except to ask for a suspension of disbelief. When all's said and done, you're not allowed to believe anything except local average treatment effects (LATEs) from randomized experiments. I don't see this as a useful standard to hold every single piece of empirical research to, because it's unreasonably demanding.

That's why I would agree with your general response, since I think macro is useful. This is because of one of the other reasons you've mentioned - there seems to be a sort of stationarity in the data where predictive relationships remain stable for a while. That's where I permit some suspension of disbelief. I think that makes me relatively lax, but I don't see a better alternative to answering the kinds of questions macroeconomists and policymakers need to ask. I might rephrase your answer to OP's question like this: macro is useful if we're OK accepting a lower standard for what constitutes useful information. There is use for statistical relationships which we hope will continue into the future but which aren't, currently, causally founded.

u/turbopony · 64 pointsr/AskSocialScience

Poor Americans are more liberal than rich Americans in general. But there are distinct patterns of political preferences by income among racial groups and geography. Poor Blacks vote overwhelmingly Democratic, as do poor Whites, except in the South where poor White's preferences are a little murkier. Andrew Gelman does a good job of explaining this in Red State, Blue State, Rich State, Poor State.

The book's paradoxical conclusion is this: Rich states and poor people vote Democratic, while poor states and rich people vote Republican. The way to reconcile the contradiction is that in red states income is a much more robust predictor of your voting habits than in blue states. So, in Connecticut, a rich blue state, income does a less good job of predicting the voting habits of wealthy and middle class voters, many of whom vote Democratic despite their wealth. In Alabama, a poor red state, the votes of people who have above-average incomes are very well predicted by their incomes. And rich, white, Southerners are the most conservative people in the United States. In Mississippi in 2012, Obama only got 10% of whites in the state to vote for him. If you went to a polling station in a rich, white suburb of Atlanta, or Tallahassee, or Jackson, I'd guess that well over 95% of people would be voting Republican. Why? Gelman goes into the nuances in his book, but it has a lot to do with religion and values which are more important to rich Republicans than any other group.

Another interesting finding that comes out of people researching voting habits by demographic characteristics is the existence of two kinds of whites. White people's voting habits basically differ based on what side of the Mason-Dixon they live on. Southern Whites are extremely conservative, whereas Northerners basically split the vote between Democrats and Republicans. That's why Republicans handily win southern states with the country's largest minority populations.


TL;DR The poorest 10% of Americans are more liberal than the richest in general as measured by preference for the Democratic Party. This relationship is less strong outside the South

Source:
Red State, Blue State, Rich State, Poor State

Gelman's research

Crooked Timber

u/Apetn · 13 pointsr/AskSocialScience

For intro sociology, I'd recommend some preachy nonfiction. They are written for laymen but introduce the sociological style of approach. Something like Fat Land or Uninsured in America.

Freakanomics is not exactly sociology, but could be an interesting read for someone interested in social economics / group behavior. Jonathan Kozol is a reporter, not a sociologist, but his stories mix investigative reporting with a human element to focus on topics of interest to the field of sociology. I remember Nickel and Dimed also being a good read.

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down is not a book about sociology, but rather a specific example of culture clash within the context of medical care. That being said, it is a big reason why I decided to become a social worker (which is a profession in line with the two fields mentioned in your post).

A Place at the Table is a movie that might fit the bill.

Note: I'm American. I imagine other places would have different topics of interest.

Edited: add movie and fix format

u/jambarama · 2 pointsr/AskSocialScience

Beyond intermediate texts, my classes ended up just reading papers from econ journals. You may want to pick up an econometrics text, get familiar with the methods, then read papers (here is a list of the 100 most cited).

I wrote my opinions on econometric textbooks I've used for another reddit comment, so I just pasted it in below. If you get into it, I'd recommend reading a less rigorous book straight through, then using a more rigorous text as reference or to do the practice stuff.

Less Mathematically Rigorous

  • Kennedy - survey of modeling issues without the math. More about how to think about modeling rather than how do it. Easy to read, I liked it

  • Angrist - similar to Kennedy, covers the why & how econometrics answers questions, very little math. Each chapter starts with a hitchhikers guide to the galaxy quote, which is fun. Just as good as Kennedy

  • Long - this book is more about just "doing stuff" and presenting results, absolutely non-technical, but also dodges the heavy thinking in Angrist & Kennedy so I wasn't a big fan

  • King - covers the thinking of Angrist & content of Maddala. It is more accessible but wordier, so give it a go if Kennedy or Angrist are too much. It is aimed at Poli Sci rather than econ.

    Middle of the Road

  • Gujarati - I used this for a class. It wasn't hard to follow, but it mostly taught methodology and the how/why/when/what, and I didn't like that - a little too "push button" and slow moving.

  • Woodlridge - a bit more rigorous than Gujarati, but it was more interesting and was clearer about motivations from the standpoint of interesting problems

  • Cameron & Trivedi - I liked the few chapters I read, the math is there, but the methodology isn't driven by the math. I ddin't get too far into it

    More Mathematically Rigorous

  • Greene - lots of math, so much it was distracting for me, but probably good for people who really want to learn the methodology

  • Wooldridge - similar to Greene, you need a solid understanding before diving into this book. Some of the chapters are impenetrable

  • Maddala - this book is best for probit/logit/tobit models and is somewhat technical but dated. My best econometrics teacher loved it
u/PopularWarfare · 2 pointsr/AskSocialScience

hmm... this is tough are you more interested in theory or application? Political Economy can get very abstract/philosophical which I personally like but it turns some people off.


why nations fail: great overview of Institutional/development economics by two phenomenal economists, Acemoglu and Robinson.

violence and social orders Another great book, it was written as introduction to North's theories for non-economists. Very interesting work.

capital in the 21st century: I don't think this book needs an introduction. But just in case, Picketty examines the interplay between economic prosperity and income inequality. The book was written with non-economists in mind. The math will greatly help your understanding but it's not necessary to understand his general arguments

Capitalism a general introduction to socioeconomics that is concise and a variety of topics on capitalism that have puzzled (and sometimes outraged) sociologists since the 19th century.

Development as Freedom: Sen argues that open dialogue, civil freedoms and political liberties are prerequisites for sustainable development.

The Worldly Philosophers: The Lives, Times And Ideas Of The Great Economic Thinkers: A history of economic thought/theory that really elucidates the intersection of politics,economics and philosophy.

u/MrSamsonite · 6 pointsr/AskSocialScience

In short, nationalism is a fiction. There are no real, actual, natural nations - they're boundaries, ideologies and understandings that have come about through historical processes, just like every understanding of our societal relationships to others. I'm only American, for instance, because I reside inside of some borders that some white people made up way back when.

The industrial revolution paved the way for nationalism because it gave humans access to unprecedented, massively powerful tools. A gallon of oil yields roughly 25,000 man-hours of human labor in terms of energy (discussion here), to give a sense of just how powerful these tools are.

What happened over the last couple centuries was that small numbers of people (capitalists, in the Marxist sense), were able harness and control this power, and use its influence on massive numbers of people around them. This makes sense spatially, as oil fields, coal mines and the like are located in geographically specific places, allowing relatively few people to take ownership of them.

With few people controlling massive amounts of energy (and therefore power), they are able to impose influence on those around them by developing infrastructure on their terms, using their industrial power to amass wealth, centralizing political power, and creating a unifying culture around their locus of power. As the article you linked points out, nations could not have come about in the sense that they have without this centralized power, which itself has come about through the harnessing and controlling of industry.

Some excellent reading on the subject:
Karl Polanyi - The Great Transformation - This is essentially the historical transformation that the title refers to
Timothy Mitchell - Rule of Experts - My all-time favorite academic book, the first few chapters especially show how Egypt as a nation came about through this type of centralization of power.


tl;dr: Modern industrial economies allow for the requisite centralization of massive amounts of power necessary to put large geographies of people under the umbrella of one "nation".


u/marketfailure · 1 pointr/AskSocialScience

So I would second Integrald's list as great, and I think everyone should read all of the books in the Core section. If you're interested in political economy, I'd specifically point out these from it as nice general-interest introductions:

  • Guns Germs and Steel
  • Why Nations Fail
  • The Mystery of Capital

    If you're interested in alternative models, there are two particular works that I'd recommend reading. The first is probably obvious - get yourself the big old Marx reader. Marxist thought is less important than it used to be, but still worth getting acquainted with.

    The second might be less familiar but I think is also very important - Karl Polanyi's The Great Transformation. It is basically a sociologically-oriented history of the rise of capitalism. Polanyi's argument is that the "free market" is no less a utopian vision than the communist one, and that in many times and places people seek protection from the market rather than a desire to participate in it. This is one of the very few books I've read as an adult that actually changed my perspective in a meaningful way, and if you're interested in the "big questions" of politics and economics I can't recommend it highly enough.
u/OutofH2G2references · 0 pointsr/AskSocialScience

As someone who majored in economics as an undergrad and who is now studying decision-making/psychology in grad-school, I suggest you focus more on economic philosophy than on traditional intro to econ stuff, like the text books being suggested, which usually focuses on micro and macro models.

I feel this way for two reasons.

  1. The of field of economics has not given up on B.F. Skinner-esk behaviorism. Many of the theories about preference, risk, and decision-making are just now starting to accommodate what Psychologists have understood for around 40 years. People are not perfectly rational decision makers. An example of this: It has only been a decade since Daniel Kahnemen won the nobel prize in Economics for Prospect Theory. A theory he devised in the 70's and which is increasingly seen as out of date/incomplete in the psychology literature.

    Utility theory was a useful first attempt at understanding how people make decisions, but like many first attempts, it just doesn't hold water 60 years later. Unfortunately economics has not adapted.

    Much of this is focused on the micro side, but I can do an equally long rant about how ridiculously out of date metrics like GDP, CPI, etc are in the realm of macro economics.

  2. Learning the models and mechanism won't actually illuminate which side of debate is right or wrong. Economics simply isn't advanced enough to tell us if Keynes, Marx, or Milton Friedman was right. I could go on at length about this, but I feel strongly that none of these theories will ever really be able to undermine the others because they start with the incorrect hypothesis that human behavior can only be predicted by strictly observing people's choices (meaning that the mechanisms driving those choices do not matter) and that people behavioral rationally.

    So, with that being said, I suggest a broader approach. Something like The Big Three which details the lives and philosophies of the 3 most influential thinkers in Economics (Smith, Marx, and Keynes)

    To further round out you knowledge I would also recommend Vienna & Chicago Which gives a good overview of classical and modern free market economics.

    Finally, I recommend Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman and Predictably Irrational, if you are unfamiliar with the work, as a good moderators of the two fields.
u/Dennerman1 · 2 pointsr/AskSocialScience

Two great books on this very topic, but the short answer is you have the best chance to change someone's mind when they see you as someone "on their side" or in their group/tribe. If they perceive you as someone from the "opposition" then they will get defensive and no amount of convincing, facts, or persuasion is likely to have an impact on their point of view.

The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0052FF7YM/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003WEAI4E/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

u/rationalities · 0 pointsr/AskSocialScience

So I’m not sure if asking questions to a current economics student will be the best way to find out if you’re interested in the subject. Especially if you’re not very familiar with the subject. Instead. I’ll give you some resources that might give you a better understanding of the subject.

This link from the American Economic Association gives you an overview of the subject. Click all around the website because there is a plethora of information. As well, here’s a link from the AEA about careers for those with an economics degree (both undergrad and grad).

Next, I would read Freakonomics and it’s sequel, Superfreakonomics. They are much closer to the “pop-Economics” than “academic economics,” but the books give a very good intro into the “non-standard” topics that still fall under the domain of economics. And it would be true that many current graduate students and young professors’ interest in the subject was peeked by those books (myself included).

After that, I would read maybe an intro textbook. My recommendations on this depends on how comfortable you are with calculus.

u/doebedoe · 2 pointsr/AskSocialScience

Which are the last two? Assuming capitalist development and codes...

By far the most famous geographer studying global capitalism is David Harvey. He recently wrote The Enigma of Capital which is a pretty easy introduction to his work. I think his Spaces of Global Capitalism is a more useful summation. He's very famous for a few other books, but I think the most important work he's done is in The Limits to Capital. The last one is a tough, meticulous book. Also worth checking out is his protege Neil Smith, either his Uneven Development or for a focus on cities The New Urban Frontier.

There really are not many books that take up housing and building code specifically, though Ben-Joseph's The City of Code is a useful introduction. If you're looking for a good rant (and a reliable one) on how we got to the less-than-stellar spatial arrangements of American cities, James Howard Kunstler's Geography of Nowhere will get your blood pumping. If you're more interested in the cultural politics of place, one of my all time favorites is Landscapes of Privilege by the Duncan's.

u/xudoxis · 4 pointsr/AskSocialScience

Before you read, watch, or discuss Austrian economics anywhere on the internet or in person I suggest you read the great essay "Why I Am Not an Austrian" by Byran Caplan.

Austrian economics has unfortunately been enormously politicized, you'll see on most of reddit that Austrian and Keynesian are merely buzzwords used instead of Democrat and Republican. What Caplan does different is he gives an honest assessment of Austrian economics and more mainstream economics as opposed to the hit jobs you'll see of either side from mises.org of slate.com(not to mention reddit).

This subreddit(and most of "econ") ones are definitely more than anti-austrian than pro, and incorrect or childishly simplistic interpretations are often upvoted. While the libertarian/austria/an-cap subreddits are pig sties of shallow arrogant thinking where mainstream economics is just a con by bankers and the government to steal everything you are.

If you are interested in learning about Austrian economics your best bet is to pick up some books and choose for yourself. I'm partial to Modern Macroeconomics which gives good overviews of the important concepts of the major schools of economic thought over the past century and has really great interviews with major practitioners of each school. It is also freely available in pdf form.

u/faggina · 3 pointsr/AskSocialScience

Dear llordlloyd,

I am not an expert in taxation, but there is theory of optimal taxation called Ramsay taxation that to minimize tax distortion and inefficiencies, the tax rate has to be *inversely proportional" with its elasticity. The idea here is that higher tax rate lowers incentive to work. But if a person's effort on a particular occupation is inelastic, a high tax rate is efficient because it only reduces work effort by a small amount, while an occupation in which its work effort is sensitive to a higher tax rate, then a smaller tax rate should be implemented because you don't want to drastically reduce the amount of work effort.

I wish I could tell you more about taxation but Joel Slemrod's Taxing Ourselves is a good layman's book on the subject of taxation.

u/balanced_goat · 5 pointsr/AskSocialScience

Jonathan Haidt's The Righteous Mind is a bit more focused than some of the other suggestions, but incredibly fascinating, readable, and does a great job of documenting the evolution of an idea in social psychology, which may give him insight into what it actually means to be a social psychologist. Wish it was available for me to read when I was his age.

u/falsehood · 39 pointsr/AskSocialScience

(mods, please remove if my source is bad)

I like the book The Righteous Mind and its discussion of morality. One of the points it makes is that being loyal to one's tribe and obeying authority are deeply moral matters for some people - and that those are more important then being nice, or being fair. The President is the head of a group they identify with and thus they are loyal.

u/Roobomatic · 2 pointsr/AskSocialScience

Highly recommend this book:

http://www.amazon.com/Class-Through-American-Status-System/dp/0671792253

Class: A guide through the American Status System, by Paul Fussel. it was written in the mid 80s, but I think the information is still relevant and the writer basically spends the entirety of the book answering your question about social class signifiers (why do New England upperclass have an affinity for nautical decor? find out in chapter 3).

To the part of the question about regions, you might be interested in this book: http://www.amazon.com/American-Nations-History-Regional-Cultures/dp/0143122029

it is about the whys behind American regional political and class differences based on who immigrated to certain areas of the country, the values and ideals they brought with them and how it changed the American landscape and informs the current social and political climate. Interesting stuff.

u/zEconomist · 2 pointsr/AskSocialScience

Depending on the flavor of macro, this could be a very non-macro question. If you were comfortable reading Debreu, I would tackle a good graduate micro text, such as Jehle Reny. It is shorter and better explained than Mas-Colell. But if you liked Debreu, then you are probalby ready for Mas-Colell. Reading the footnotes in either is a good indication of newer developments.

u/wonkalot · 5 pointsr/AskSocialScience

The short answer is "not very" - the long answer is very complicated.

The absolute best book on the topic (IMHO) is "Violent Entrepreneurs" by Vadim Volkov. I'll quote a brief description from a previous post on this:

> Before the fall of the Soviet Union, there were a variety of experiments to liberalize the economy. These experiments created small markets with little regulation, but did not resolve the wider issues of scarcity that plagued the economy. The result was a massive breeding ground for criminal enterprise - mainly protection rackets. When the USSR collapsed, these professional (and criminal) enterprises became one of the few sources of order. The provided protection, resources, and money to a wide variety of businesses. As such, they were also the greatest concentrations of wealth in the new economy.

>After the fall, many public enterprises (power, gas, oil, etc.) went up for sale. These criminal groups were some of the major investors (and sometimes sole purchasers) of these MASSIVE organizations. So essentially you now have what is known as a kleptocracy - in which illegitimately-gained wealth allows for a massive economic takeover. Out of this period of violence, instability, and expanding enterprise, grew a group of oligarchs who hold immense power in Russia.

>The oligarchs are not the only game in town though. After the fall, members of The Party - particularly the KGB - still had many resources and connections at their disposal. In the new Russian state, many of these figures consolidated a vast amount of influence - including an ambitious KGB officer named Vladimir Putin. Putin rose the power through the "new KGB" - the FSB - and through some fairly ruthless maneuvers, became one of the few people capable of subduing the influence of the oligarchy.

>It should be mentioned there are a lot of cultural issues at play - massive racism, a long history of appreciation for a "strong hand" in charge, an ancient issue of Russian identity (are we European, or are we Asian?), that facilitate a much different political process in Russia. But at the core of the difficulties of the RF is really this unique nexus of crime, government, and business.

u/Hot_Autism · 2 pointsr/AskSocialScience

Laffont and Martimort have a book that is probably a good fit. http://press.princeton.edu/titles/7311.html
It is more geared towards walking you through some more common models. I remember the math being relatively light and explained fairly pedantically.

Alternatively, I am working through one by Vohra right now that it quite good but pretty mathematically dense.
http://www.amazon.com/Mechanism-Design-Programming-Econometric-Monographs/dp/0521179467

I also remember the mechanism design chapters in Reny and Jehle's textbook were well presented too.
http://www.amazon.com/Advanced-Microeconomic-Theory-Geoffrey-Jehle/dp/0273731912/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1395102676&sr=1-1&keywords=reny+and+jehle

u/blacktrance · 4 pointsr/AskSocialScience

Naked Economics by Charles Wheelan got me interested in the subject. It's a great place to start. Then I recommend reading an intro-level textbook, such as Mankiw's Principles.

u/tragicjones · 2 pointsr/AskSocialScience

To supplement and expand, this book is a great read, with very clearly presented data, that describes and explores this phenomenon.

u/omaolligain · 16 pointsr/AskSocialScience

Nudge by Thaler (Nobel Prize in Economics) & Sunstein
A book which is unquestionably about Economics and Public Policy

​

I haven't read it yet but it's on my list:
Misbehaving: The Making of Behavioral Economics also by Thaler

​

Thinking Fast & Slow by Kahneman (Nobel Prize in Economics)
Not strictly about economics but Kahneman essentially created the field of "Behavioral Economics" and the implications for his theories about decision making bias are extensive in Economics. In many ways Kahneman and Tverski's work is the foundation of Thaler's in Nudge.

​

Also:
Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely
If you can't tell I like the Behavioral Econmics books...

u/aidrocsid · 2 pointsr/AskSocialScience

Have you already read some mainstream books on economics? I'm not sure going straight to the fringe is the best way of understanding how money works, if that's your goal. Personally, my own introduction to economics was through socialism and the works for Marx and Engels, but that just made it harder to understand how things work economically. If you're looking to understand economics in the context of a capitalist society I wouldn't jump straight into looking at anti-capitalists.

Personally, I've found Naked Economics to be extremely enlightening.

u/GRANITO · 3 pointsr/AskSocialScience

Mostly Harmless Econometrics

and

The Signal and the Noise

are my recommendations for an introduction into more advanced topics in econometrics. If you want more of a textbook Th3Plot_inYou's suggestion is good (I still have mine from my class).

Edit: Signal and the Noise is more theoretical about forecasting in general.

u/novelty_Poop_Corn · 1 pointr/AskSocialScience

Having studied psych, I understand what you've said very well. I guess that's one thing about economics that I do know: the idea that humans are rational thinkers is an utter myth.

And I knew I recognized that author from somewhere!

"The Worldly Philosophers" seems similar to that first book you mentioned. Just wanted to point that out, it was suggested higher up.

Also, I find it interesting when people switch to a different subject for grad school. Why did you switch? Personally, I've become disillusioned with psychology and have began wanting to know "the big picture", like studying culture, hence why I started reading Graeber.