A random physicist takes on economics

Jason Smith, a random physicist, has a new book out where he takes aim at some of the core foundations of microeconomics. I encourage every economist out there to open their mind, read it, and genuinely consider the implications of this new approach.

Go get it now. It only costs a few bucks.

So what do I think? His approach is exactly what economics needs - a set of fresh eyes on the basics.[1]

The book is, fundamentally, an introduction to Smith's new view of what I would call ‘microeconomics as the emergent characteristic of random agents in constrained situations’. Or, more simply put, why you don’t need rational decision-makers for a useful economic theory that makes good predictions.

To get some sense of why this is important, economists are often criticised for getting the big picture stuff of macroeconomics wrong, like missing the financial crisis. But in reality, the economic micro-level stuff, about responding to relative prices, making choices based on incomes and preferences, is also a failure built on an elaborate, but highly questionable, theoretical structure.

Smith says that this theoretical structure is unnecessary. In fact, he says, people acting randomly within their budget will have the emergent property of behaving ‘as if’ they comply with the rational economic model. That is, humans are irrational at the individual level, but the fact that our choices are constrained by our incomes means that in aggregate, the average behaviour responds to external changes in a similar manner to that of the mythical rational person.

To get a feeling for this, consider the graph below from one of Smith's favourite economics paper by Gary Becker, which made similar points. For those who haven't guessed what it shows, the X and Y axes are the amount of consumption of two goods, and the lines C-D and A-B are the budget constraints (i.e. how much of each good, or combination of goods, can be bought) at two different sets of relative prices. The line C-D has a lower price of good Y, and a higher price of good X, than the line A-B.

The point C is the centre of the triangle A-B-0. So if people consume randomly within that budget constraint at those prices, the average person will consume a combination of goods near point C. When the budget constraint changes to C-D, the new centre point is C'. This shift, from C to C', is very similar to the shift p to p', which is what would be expected under the standard theory utility maximisation.

Just taking the average of random choices within the budget constraint predicts the same patterns as utility maximisation, without requiring any knowledge of individual behaviour. When the price of good Y declines, people consume more of it, and vice-versa for good X, whether people act randomly or as utility maximisers.

Smith's (and Becker's) simpler approach reframes traditional micro-level topics as the emergent behaviour they are, and leaves the quirky patterns within individual choices to the realm of psychology. This approach makes perfect sense to me.

However, I highly doubt that this idea will be picked up in a hurry by the economics profession for a couple of main reasons. First, it gives away the big prize of economics-- utility and social welfare. If people just behave randomly at an individual level, it breaks the important link between individual choices, higher utility, and social welfare, which forms the backbone of economic thinking, and gives the profession the claim to power in political debates. No longer will economists be the only ones to proclaim that they know the secrets to a better (or higher utility/welfare) society. In fact, they will have to admit that they don’t.

Second, it removes the ability to blame bad choices by individuals as the cause of their economic destiny. If our theory of microeconomics is that people behave randomly within constraints, then to improve outcomes for certain groups of people, we need to change the nature of their constraints, not their decisions. These constraints could be income, wealth, social status and relationships, etc. Solutions to inequality, to homelessness, and other social problems are immediately redirected by this theory back to society at large, and the rules and systems we put in place to create constraints on individuals.

I highly recommend the read. When I finished the book, however, my mind was racing with more ways in which this approach could be applied in more ways across economic topics.

Finally, if you want to read more, you can read Smith's more detailed and technical attempt at piecing together this new approach here.

fn.[1] As a brief disclaimer, I have followed the author's terrific blog for quite a while. I make a point of keeping an eye on original thinkers in general, and he certainly is one, though I’ve never met Smith in person.

Economic bandits

Get the book via gameofmates.com 

A string of successful Game of Mates speaking events has happened recently -- in Kuranda, Sydney, Canberra, and Melbourne. I can't take all the credit. But, James, our bandit in the Game of Mates, can. He has been extremely active all across the land and people are starting to notice.

One issue that has repeatedly come up at these events is the rise of 'strategic representation' of the economic benefits of major projects in planning applications. For example, a land subdivision proposal might include plans for a new university campus, eco-tourism facilities, and more, in order to be able to claim the project will generate billions of dollars of economic benefits to the region. But the reality is often that these additional facilities are completely infeasible and will never happen. They are just included in the application to beef up the claimed merits of the project, for there is no obligation from the approval to follow through with the full extent of the proposal.

The same happens with applications for new mines. Miners often propose unrealistically high volumes of production to be able to exaggerate the scale and intensity of investment in the local area, along with inflated estimates of royalty revenues to State governments.

One solution to this problem is to make planning approvals an obligation, not an option. At present, miners are granted a right to mine up to a particular volume of minerals or energy resources, but with no obligation to do so. Instead, approvals could carry the obligation to deliver what was proposed within a reasonable timeframe or pay penalties and risk losing the option to ask for future approvals.

In the ACT, when land is sold to private developers for a particular purpose, like a residential apartment complex, they must deliver a development that complies within two years or face penalties, including the possibility of the land reverting back to public ownership.

In mining, to determine whether a proposal is exaggerated, rules that oblige application to pay their estimated royalties up front could be enacted, perhaps with a discount. If the project seems feasible, banks and other financiers would be willing to lend this amount to cover the royalties. If the project is unviable and exaggerated, no one will be will to be part of this financing effort.

The solutions are clear once we understand the core economic issues at play.

Bullshit economic assessments par for the course in Australia (more politely, it’s just “strategic assessment”) https://t.co/FuE2mlI5RI

— Cameron Murray (@DrCameronMurray) August 2, 2017

In other news, on 12th August I will be attending 'Love Your Bookshop Day' at Avid Reader in West End (Brisbane), so please come along to that event if you can.

Lastly, I will be a keynote speaker at The Australia Institute's Accountability and Law Conference in Canberra on 17th August. There is a group of very esteemed legal experts attending, as well as political representatives. All in all, it should be a very interesting event. The event website is here.

Long live food waste

One issue that occupies the minds of environmentalists from across the political spectrum is food waste. Around one-third of all food produced for human consumption is never eaten. To environmentalists, this is astonishing and terrible.

But, unfortunately, they are completely wrong. And I say that as a fervent environmentalist.

It is actually a world with zero food waste that is a terrible place to be. We absolutely do not want to be that world.

The reason is this.

Food waste is, in practice, a tremendously important global food insurance policy. In a world of zero food waste, if a natural disaster, such as a flood or drought, hits some of the most productive agricultural regions, both food production and food consumption will fall dramatically. There is no buffer. If production falls, food consumption falls by an equal amount.

If a flood, for example, wiped out a quarter of world food production one year, in a world with zero food waste the per person food intake must also fall on average by 25%. It would be an absolute humanitarian tragedy by any measure.

However, in a world where one-third of the food produced is wasted, either on the farm, during distribution, or in processing and cooking, that flood would have the same effect on food production, but a much smaller impact on overall food consumption. Reducing waste at each point in the food production chain could regain most of that 25% of food that was lost to flood.

The below table show this basic comparison. Country A is the idealised zero food waste utopia, producing 100 units of food, and consuming it all, in the Before scenario. Country B is the current world, consuming only two-thirds of the food produced, and ‘wasting’ the rest. Notice that in the situation before the natural disaster, Country B produces far more food, and this production requires vast swathes of land to be brought into production, something with considerable environmental cost.

But look at both countries in the After scenario, where an unforeseen disaster wipes out a quarter of food production, it is Country B that comes out on top. Country B is able to consume more than Country A, perhaps as much as before, by using the food waste as a type of insurance, able to be drawn on when needed.

This is important. As a world we can’t use traditional insurance for such situations. Being paid out financially by an insurance policy is useless if there is no food to buy. You still starve.

This is also why most countries heavily subsidise and incentivise agricultural production. Letting markets alone decide what to produce each year will not create the genuine over-supply needed to act as a buffer against bad times.

Indeed, countries with the most food waste are generally the most economically efficient. Europe and North America waste almost 300kg of food per person per year. In sub-Saharan Africa and southern Asia, food waste is around half of that. Yet it is Europe and North America that are overall the most economically efficient in terms of converting resource inputs to outputs.

The above scenario also abstracts away from the many distributional issues at play in our food system as well. But reducing food waste overall won’t solve these either. If the problem is distribution, focus on distribution.

Indeed, if land degradation from agriculture is the underlying concern that makes reducing food waste an attractive idea, we should focus directly on the problem by making rules that control land uses to ensure better environmental outcomes. Indirect approaches should be a last resort.

Reducing food waste, like many pro-environment ideas, seems plausible and obvious on the surface but ignores crucial systemic issues.

First published at Renegade Inc.

Population debate now mainstream

After years of being an 'off-limits' topic, a debate has finally emerged in the mainstream media about an appropriate level of immigration to Australia.

As a background, immigration levels have been rising steadily since the late 1990s, with record inflows after the financial crisis of 2008, as the below ABS chart shows. The break in the data series is a change in the measurement, now applying a "12/16 month rule" of residency that captures immigrants who travel to their home country periodically, but reside in Australia for 12 out of the past 16 months. This brings the data in line with many other countries, like Canada.

The latest mainstream media attention has been at The Guardian, in an article by Tom Westlake, responding to ongoing discussions at MacroBusiness, which has led to some back and forth (here, here, and now here).

No doubt the media will prefer to avoid the main issue, instead attracting clicks with racist rants and name-calling, all the while presenting the debate as a choice between two extremes (open borders vs zero immigration). The debate is not about immigrants being bad people for coming to Australia. After all, they almost always jump the hoops and follow the rules our politicians made. The debate is about setting up an immigration system that delivers a lower overall rate while delivering better humanitarian and social outcomes.

Below is what I hope is a sensible contribution, which I originally posted at Medium in response to Tom Westlake.

~~~***~~~

I’m pretty sure the arguments boil down to you each having two different points of view, then both sides finding evidence to support it (which is totally normal, by the way). As you said:

I am not going to try to address the implied moral logic of van Onselen: that the criterion upon which we ought to judge immigration policy is the welfare of incumbent residents. As it happens, I think this is a deeply unethical social welfare function.

This is the crux. I know enough economics now to know that you can get just about any answer from technical assessments of marginal welfare effects. So let’s leave that to the side. Let’s stop pretending technical assessments will provide an answer or change minds.

I personally think this ideological different is strange, and am curious as to your ethical viewpoint. For example, if you think nations are a useful organisational institution, and democracy is a useful way to offer some checks on power structures in a nation, surely you imply support for judging national policy based on the welfare of residents, as that is the underlying rationale of the democratic nation-state.

If you don’t, then you open up some puzzles. For example, if you are instead a global welfare maximiser, start sending ships to collect the neediest people from Bangladesh, or the drought-affected regions of Somalia, South Sudan, Tanzania, Mozambique etc., and bring them over. It’s the easiest way to do it. Or just send them free food and equipment. Our policy settings, and most individual choices, are completely unlike the choices of a global welfare maximiser.

In any case, any policy position apart from complete open borders is a de facto population policy. The question is whether the benefits outweigh the costs (to whoever, based on your ethical view) at an immigration rate of 200,000+ per year, or whether the net benefits are higher with a rate less than 100,000 per year. Judging by the comments and my experience talking to people from all across the country, the common view is that the benefits are more apparent with lower rates.

If we take some counterfactuals for a moment, consider if this debate was happening in the early 2000s when the immigration rate was about half what it is now. I assume you would argue that higher is better. I have no idea what Leith would argue, since I don’t think he thought it was an issue back then.

Then immigration doubles. You, I assume, would still be happier with a higher rate. Leith now sees it as a problem.

Let’s double the rate again (to half a million a year). Would your position change? I suspect not. I suspect, again, that this argument is really about conflicting underlying moral and philosophical viewpoints.

Anyway, my feeling is many of the policy failures you discuss are also much easier to remedy with lower rates of immigration.

Lastly, if you genuinely want higher immigration you should be ignoring this debate and not fuelling the fire, since there is massive popular support for lowering immigration back to pre-2006 levels, and the more it is in the media, the more politicians will have to respond to this groundswell.