Wednesday, December 14, 2022

The limitations of economic models - Economists are not physicists



It is always important to think about the limitations of models. It not just that economic models are approximations of reality. It is that economic models have some specific ambiguity because we cannot adequately describe the changing behavior of market participants. We assume rationality and approximate the interaction across different market participants. The difference between reality and a model, forecast error is the behavior we do not understand. 

Physics is easy by comparison. We are not physicists. We can use their tools, but we must grapple with deeper problems. 

 

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