2007 Nobel Prize for Economics winner on free markets

[West]

Nobel economics winner says market forces flawed

commentary

[bobman0330]

Pretty biased article from reuters. Hard to tell how biased without seeing the text of his remarks, but I'm guessing pretty biased.

[West]

How so? Seems pretty freakin straight forward to me.

[pvn]

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Nobel economics winner says market forces flawed

commentary

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Professor Eric Maskin, one of three American economists to receive the award, said that he "to some extent" takes issue with free-market orthodoxy championed by U.S President George W. Bush and some other western leaders.

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If what Bush champions is "free market orthodoxy" then I agree, I am opposed to "free market orthodoxy."

[ianlippert]

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If what Bush champions is "free market orthodoxy" then I agree, I am opposed to "free market orthodoxy."



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Its hard to tell from this article but it doesnt seem like he actually brought anything new to the debate. What did he get the nobel for again?

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"How do we ensure in the case of public goods that they are provided at all, and that they are provided at the right level, taking into account citizens' preferences?" he said.

A clean environment, for example, is not a private good in that "my enjoyment of it doesn't preclude yours," he said.

"So the theory of mechanism design asks what sort of procedures or mechanisms or institutions could be put in place which allow us to choose the right level," he said.

Those mechanisms could include taxes to allow the more efficient provision of public goods, he said.



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Just pick any random economist from the past 50 years and they are likely to say this. *Yawn*

[yukoncpa]

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If what Bush champions is "free market orthodoxy" then I agree, I am opposed to "free market orthodoxy."


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From the article:

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"So the theory of mechanism design asks what sort of procedures or mechanisms or institutions could be put in place which allow us to choose the right level," he said.

Those mechanisms could include taxes to allow the more efficient provision of public goods [such as the environment], he said.



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I don't think you would agree with this?

[tolbiny]

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In its statement with the award, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said the market's efficiency may be undermined because consumers are not perfectly informed, competition is not completely free

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Somebody needs to brush up on his Rothbard.

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and "privately desirable production and consumption may generate social costs and benefits."

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And public production and consumption may generate social costs and benefits.

[NickMPK]

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If what Bush champions is "free market orthodoxy" then I agree, I am opposed to "free market orthodoxy."



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Its hard to tell from this article but it doesnt seem like he actually brought anything new to the debate. What did he get the nobel for again?

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"How do we ensure in the case of public goods that they are provided at all, and that they are provided at the right level, taking into account citizens' preferences?" he said.

A clean environment, for example, is not a private good in that "my enjoyment of it doesn't preclude yours," he said.

"So the theory of mechanism design asks what sort of procedures or mechanisms or institutions could be put in place which allow us to choose the right level," he said.

Those mechanisms could include taxes to allow the more efficient provision of public goods, he said.



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Just pick any random economist from the past 50 years and they are likely to say this. *Yawn*

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He didn't win the Nobel for saying that free markets are imperfect. He won for mechanism design, which is a branch of game theory related to what procedures to put in place to help fix market imperfections. The fact that markets are imperfect is an assumption implicit in the whole enterprise, not a result.

[BCPVP]

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"How do we ensure in the case of public goods that they are provided at all, and that they are provided at the right level, taking into account citizens' preferences?" he said.

A clean environment, for example, is not a private good in that "my enjoyment of it doesn't preclude yours," he said.

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There you go, pvn. Shade that falls on your neighbor's property from your tree is a public good. A Nobel-winning economist said so.

[pvn]

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If what Bush champions is "free market orthodoxy" then I agree, I am opposed to "free market orthodoxy."


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From the article:

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"So the theory of mechanism design asks what sort of procedures or mechanisms or institutions could be put in place which allow us to choose the right level," he said.

Those mechanisms could include taxes to allow the more efficient provision of public goods [such as the environment], he said.



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I don't think you would agree with this?

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Well, no. I can agree that what he's calling "free market orthodoxy" (which is actually nothing of the sort) is bogus without embracing his particular solution to the problem.

I think in a sense, he's right, though. Taxes can allow a "more efficient provision of (so-called) public goods" if you just adopt the same mindset that the bureaucrat does; something I want is not provided at the level I personally would like in a market allocation, I can apply coercion and force to get the predetermined "correct" number of units produced, therefore, this must be a good thing.

The problem (ignoring the moral implications) is that there is no "correct" number - no one person's preference is inherently better than another.