Economics Questions

Re: Superbugs Part II

Autolykos — Thu, 23 Jun 2011 03:25:19 GMT

Coase:
Only your last question was an issue of clarification, and I'm pretty sure the answer is implied in the definition I gave.

As far as I'm concerned, all of my questions were issues of clarification. You have yet to demonstrate how they're all irrelevant. Note that merely repeating your claim of irrelevance does not constitute a demonstration of said claim.

Re: Superbugs Part II

Southern — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 18:24:16 GMT

It seems to me that the use of antibiotics would not violate anyone elses property rights. So how is this an externality? Just because an action affects other people does not make it an externality.

Re: Superbugs Part II

Coase — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 00:57:10 GMT

Oh, and the one about how to measure wealth (dollars).

Re: Superbugs Part II

Coase — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 00:56:03 GMT

Only your last question was an issue of clarification, and I'm pretty sure the answer is implied in the definition I gave.

Re: Superbugs Part II

Autolykos — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 00:43:55 GMT

As far as I'm concerned, your definition is ambiguous. But I can't help it if you're afraid to provide clarification.

Re: Superbugs Part II

Coase — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 23:58:51 GMT

Actually, it's all irrelevant. I defined a term. None of your questions make sense as a response.

Re: Superbugs Part II

Autolykos — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 23:35:02 GMT

Demonstrate, demonstrate, demonstrate, demonstrate, why dollars?, demonstrate, this implies unanimous-decisions-or-bust.

Re: Superbugs Part II

Coase — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 19:33:46 GMT

Irrelevant, irrelevant, irrelevant, irrelevant, dollars, irrelevant, yeah.

Re: Superbugs Part II

Autolykos — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 18:46:32 GMT

Coase:
Optimal: given initial conditions,

Do you know exactly what those initial conditions are? Does anyone, ever?

Coase:
if all members of the market were to judge the various possibilities,

How many possibilities are there? How many members of "the market" are there?

Coase:
and their judgement was weighted in accordance with their personal wealth,

How is their personal wealth to be measured?

Coase:
and they bore the full costs and benefits of their judgement,

Do you know exactly what those costs and benefits are?

Coase:
the situation that would be judged as superior.

Judged by whom, exactly? "All members of the market" together?

Re: Superbugs Part II

Coase — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 01:44:52 GMT

Actually, no to both examples. Misread them, sorry.

Re: Superbugs Part II

Coase — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 01:37:23 GMT

Yes but no. Practically speaking, we're concerned with the price system and the market, narrowly (properly) defined.

Sure, yeah, whatever. Just get the price up.

Re: Superbugs Part II

z1235 — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 01:34:19 GMT

Coase:
Negative externality is a consequence of an action that affects someone negatively who is not party to the decision.

Like your girlfriend leaving you for someone else? Or a guy not dining at your restaurant and choosing your competitor next door instead?

And yeah, tax that. Not ban.

So tax anti-virus software to discourage people from using it? Why not just ban it outright and be done with it?

Re: Superbugs Part II

Coase — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 20:36:18 GMT

Optimal: given initial conditions, if all members of the market were to judge the various possibilities, and their judgement was weighted in accordance with their personal wealth, and they bore the full costs and benefits of their judgement, the situation that would be judged as superior.

Re: Superbugs Part II

thelion — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 20:07:30 GMT

Coase:
It's an issue of optimal resource allocation.

His criterion is the same criterion all pseudo-economists who make value judgments use:

"The appartments of workers are 'too small.' The houses of capitalists are 'too large.' This is not 'optimal.' " (Ludwig Pohle 1911).

He never actually uses mathematical definition of "optimality," because (Pareto) optimality doesn't care how resources are intitially distributed and how this makes the final distribution.

To optimize something Pareto style, i.e., mathematically, one must minimize costs while maximizing results. Thus, changing who pays without changing quantity of either costs to pay or quantity of results does not make anything more or less "optimal."

The Pigovian analysis of Tax, Tax, Tax is pre-ordinal utility, and pre-Pareto, BTW, even though Pigovian analysis was popular for a very long time after Pareto. The whole thing depends, notice, on Alfred Marshall's style of analysis; universities which stress modern economics usually fail to condone Pigovian taxes.

Edit: I feel I should write a short math essay and put it on Arxiv or something, that gives a refresher course in basic Intermediate Micro, and link to that in this forum, because these discussions are becoming absurd in the amount of ignorance.

If someone in most universities just writes "Tax" as solution to problems, without proving it, they get 0 points. Why should this be different in an economics forum? Well?

Re: Superbugs Part II

Autolykos — Mon, 20 Jun 2011 15:23:34 GMT

Coase:
It's an issue of optimal resource allocation.

What's your criterion or criteria for optimality of resource allocation?