Asymptosis

‘It is suicidal for the field to slide into a hard science of choice,’ Coase writes in HBR, ‘ignoring the influences of society, history, culture, and politics on the working of the economy.’ (By ‘choice,’ he means ever more complex versions of price and demand curves.)

U Chicago, my daughter’s college, sends me interesting emails now and then, undoubtedly in hopes that I’ll give them money. The latest had this interesting link to an interview with one of their favored sons:

Bloomberg Businessweek (November 30, 2012)
Urging economists to step away from the blackboard
At 101, Nobel laureate Ronald Coase attempts to launch a journal that focuses on the economic study of firms and people over abstractions and statistics.

Cross-posted at Angry Bear.

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