Economics Questions

Re: Discrete Mathematics and Marxist Economics

abskebabs — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 21:30:07 GMT

I don't think that criticism applies to strictly Austrian price theory (excluding Reisman and possibly Hayek). Austrian price theory in its "marginal pairs" formulation as developed by Bohm Bawerk is entirely discrete, and covers a wider range of market scenarios than standard S-D curves (for highly divisible commodities like money, which forms part of every exchange on a real market, we can pretty much assume continuous curves however). See the Direct Exchange section of MES for more information.

Re: Discrete Mathematics and Marxist Economics

Andris Birkmanis — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 18:04:40 GMT

Depends which part of the claim we analyze.

Some of the products are measured discretely (you can only get a whole numebr of them, e.g., cars, computers) while others are measured continuosly (you can divide them infinitely, at least as far as matters, e.g., gold, oil). So ther is at least some truth to it.

On the other hand, it hardly matters so much as to "throw" out whatever analysis - even the discretely counted products usually have continuous qualities. Right, it makes no sense to say that the demand for cars at $10,000 is 25,000 and half, but is this additional half-a-car so much a problem? I guess a worse problem is treating cars as uniform commodity, which does not depend on discreteness.

All in all, this argument is a red herring.

Re: Discrete Mathematics and Marxist Economics

Isaac "Izzy" Marmolejo — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 18:01:03 GMT

can you give us the thread you are refering to?

Discrete Mathematics and Marxist Economics

Tony Fernandez — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 17:49:19 GMT

Just read this on a forum, and I don't really understand the importance of it.

"the number of products is discrete, not continuous, which throws all their silly supply/demand graphs way out of whack when done with proper discrete analysis"

What is the basis of his claim, is it valid, and is it important?