Death of a market
Greetings patrons,
It’s time for another research update. In today’s newsletter, three things:
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New papers;
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New features on Economics from the Top Down;
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Thoughts about vlogging.
New Papers
I’m excited to have two new papers published in September. The first is called ‘Economic Development and the Death of the Free Market’. It explores how societies industrialize by doing the opposite of what mainstream economists say they should. Instead of stoking the free market, societies industrialize by stoking the growth of hierarchy.
If you’re a long-time reader, you’ll know that this paper has been in the works for a while. On that front, it’s worth reflecting on the winding path of doing science. Below are the blog posts in which I developed ideas that would eventually be incorporated into the published paper.
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The Growth of Hierarchy and the Death of the Free Market (May 2019)
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What if the Government is Just Another Firm? (Part 1) (February 2020)
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What if the Government is Just Another Firm? (Part 2) (February 2020)
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Economic Development and the Death of the Free Market (original draft, May 2020)
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The Paradox of Individualism and Hierarchy (June 2020)
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Economic Development and the Death of the Free Market (published version, August 2021)
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The Long, Slow Death of the Free Market (blog summary, September 2021)
The lesson here is that developing and testing ideas takes time. During my masters degree, I remember feeling stressed by the need to pump out a thesis in a few months. The problem was that I was trying to write a masterpiece in one go. That rarely works.
Now I know that to develop good ideas, you need to write them down multiple times in different ways. Hence, I find this blog extremely useful for doing science. When I have an idea, my first step is to write a blog post about it. Later, I try to collate related ideas into a more cohesive paper.
The second paper out in September is called ‘The ritual of capitalization’ and was published in the Real-world Economics Review (RWER).
If you’re not familiar, RWER is an outstanding journal for many reasons. First, it’s open access. You can sign up to their mailing list and get emails of each new issue. Second, the journal doesn’t charge author fees. (Open-access journals usual charge authors thousands of dollars to the publisher.) Third, RWER has a huge readership … which is not surprising, because people are hungry for economic thinking that engages with the real world. Fourth, RWER has a fast turn-around to publish.
The only downside of RWER is that it is unprestigious. So when a hiring committee ranks your CV based on journal prestige, a RWER publication will get you nowhere. Fortunately, I have decided to give prestige the middle finger.
New features on Economics from the Top Down
After almost 3 years of blogging, Economics from the Top Down now contains over 120 posts totalling over 360,000 words.
In light of this growing archive, I’ve added new features to the site. The first is an archive page that lists every post with a short summary. To be honest, I’m not sure how many people will use this feature. But at least for me it is useful. It helps me keep track of what I’ve written.
The second new feature is a most popular page that lists my 20 most-read posts. You may be surprised to learn that my most popular post (by far) is Debunking the ‘Productivity-Pay Gap’ . The post discusses the problems with a famous chart that claims to show a growing gap between US productivity and workers’ wages.
I wrote the post basically as a rant, and then forgot about it. Well, it turns out that search engines have thought highly of this post. So when you search for ‘productivity pay gap’, my post ranks just below the Economic Policy Institute page which contains the original research.
My guess is that the post is essentially serving as click-bait. Right wingers click on the ‘debunking’ link thinking it will rebuke the notion that the US is growing more unequal. But actually, the post acknowledges that inequality is a problem. It’s just that framing this inequality in terms of ‘productivity’ is not helpful.
The popularity of the ‘debunking’ post demonstrates how search algorithms shape internet traffic. Although these algorithms provide a crucial public service, they are essentially black boxes kept under proprietary lock and key. I think search algorithms should be open source. But I’ll save that rant for a future post.
Thoughts about vlogging
I’m considering stepping into the world of vlogging (video blogging). But first, I thought I’d ask you (my most dedicated readers) what you think.
First some caveats. I rarely watch YouTube videos, largely because I find them an inefficient way to transfer information. (Reading is so much faster than talking.) That said, I think that many people find it easier to digest information when it is spoken. So to that end, I’m thinking of converting some of my better posts into YouTube videos.
The template here is the work of Sabine Hossenfelder, who runs an extremely successful physics channel. Before moving to videos, Hossenfelder blogged at Backreaction (where she still posts the transcripts of her videos).
The production quality on Hossenfelder’s videos is tremendous, and I doubt I could match it. Still, I think that videos might be an interesting way to reach a wider audience. I certainly wouldn’t stop blogging, since writing is the only way I know to develop ideas. But I think that making the occasional high-quality YouTube video might be worthwhile.
I do have several videos up, but these are just screen captures of presentations that I’ve given online. If I were to get serious about making videos, I’d need to invest in some equipment to up the production quality.
Anyway, at this point vlogging is just an idea. So before I dive into it, let me know what you think.
Until next time
That’s it for this research update. Thanks for participating in my little gift economy. Its success shows that property rights are not the only way to earn an income.
Cheers,
Blair