Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Economics

Changes to the WP:1.0 assessment scheme

As you may have heard, we at the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial Team recently made some changes to the assessment scale, including the addition of a new level. The new description is available at WP:ASSESS.

• The new C-Class represents articles that are beyond the basic Start-Class, but which need additional references or cleanup to meet the standards for B-Class.
• The criteria for B-Class have been tightened up with the addition of a rubric, and are now more in line with the stricter standards already used at some projects.
• A-Class article reviews will now need more than one person, as described here.

Each WikiProject should already have a new C-Class category at Category:C-Class_articles. If your project elects not to use the new level, you can simply delete your WikiProject's C-Class category and clarify any amendments on your project's assessment/discussion pages. The bot is already finding and listing C-Class articles.

Please leave a message with us if you have any queries regarding the introduction of the revised scheme. This scheme should allow the team to start producing offline selections for your project and the wider community within the next year. Thanks for using the Wikipedia 1.0 scheme! For the 1.0 Editorial Team, §hepBot (Disable) 21:58, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

New economics and finance stubs

Hi. There is currently a discussion on creating new economics and finance stubs. Currently, the main stub category has over 2000 stub. We welcome your input. Thanks --Patrick (talk) 18:06, 20 July 2008 (UTC)

Articles flagged for cleanup

Currently, 950 articles are assigned to this project, of which 370, or 38.9%, are flagged for cleanup of some sort. (Data as of 14 July 2008.) Are you interested in finding out more? I am offering to generate cleanup to-do lists on a project or work group level. See User:B. Wolterding/Cleanup listings for details. Subscribing is easy - just add a template to your project page. If you want to respond to this canned message, please do so at my user talk page. --B. Wolterding (talk) 18:41, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Sounds useful, but also, there is little point in continuing to generate cleanup lists when there aren't even enough people to help with the cleanup. We need to focus more on single articles instead of just putting a lot of articles under our wing but not doing anything about them. Gary King (talk) 18:43, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Doha Development Round

Hi all. I'm planning on working on the Doha Development Round article over this weekend since there might actually be a agreement soon. I would welcome the help if anyone cares to join. Thanks --Patrick (talk) 20:27, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Oooh, exciting. I added it to my watchlist and I'll try taking a fuller look sometime today. Vickser (talk) 20:34, 26 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, I added in some stuff about the issues pertaining to the round. I've been taking a fair amount from congressional research documents, which are in the public domain. I'll be adding some more in tomorrow fixing a few weak spots --Patrick (talk) 01:52, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

New stubs

Hi all. Some new stubs relating to economics have been created. If you come across any pages that have {{tl:econ-stub}}, consider replacing it with one of the following stubs, if it is a related page.

• {{international-trade-stub}}
• {{econ-policy-stub}}
• {{econ-theory-stub}}
• {{econ-problem-stub}}
• {{trade-stub}}

Thanks. --Patrick (talk) 21:34, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Stubs again

I've been sorting through many of the articles in Category:Economics and finance stubs. I've found that many of them do not have categories other than the stub category. Therefore I have been adding them to Category:Uncategorized stubs. Putting them in the correct categories is far from my expertise so I ask editors of this project to have a look through Category:Uncategorized stubs to try to categorise all the economics and finance stubs. More information on categories can be found at WP:CATEGORY. Thanks Severo^TC 20:57, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Template:Nobel icon proposed for deletion

A TfD has been convened, as to whether to prohibit all the little gold icons in Nobel prizewinners' infoboxes. Jheald (talk) 09:04, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Punctuation of block-displayed formulæ in economics articles

Over in “St. Petersburg paradox”, there is a dispute on whether block-displayed formulæ should be punctuated as are in-line formulæ. In other words, which (if either) is unacceptable:

Jones offer the model

$U\left(p,x\right)=p+x$,

which was rejected out of hand by Smith in favor of

$U\left(p,x\right)=p\cdot x$.

(having a comma and then a period after the formulæ) or

Jones offer the model

$U\left(p,x\right)=p+x$

which was rejected out of hand by Smith in favor of

$U\left(p,x\right)=p\cdot x$

(not having a comma or period). If you have an opinion or other constructive comment, then please make it at Talk:St. Petersburg paradox#Request for comments: punctuation after displayed formula. One thing that I believe would be helpful would be for people to informally skim a few econ journals or books that they have at hand, and report what practice(s) they find. —SlamDiego_←T 12:31, 9 August 2008 (UTC)

Science driver

An alleged economics term that I've never heard before is at AfD. If anyone has heard of a "science driver", it'd be cool to hear you weigh in. Check it out: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Science driver. -FrankTobia (talk) 02:52, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

WTO navigation template

I posted this over at the WTO talk page, but I haven't received any comments. I've been thinking that it might be useful to create a navigation template for the WTO, something like the UN has. We have 46 pages in the category. The draft is at Template:WTO nav. I would appreciate any comments. Thanks. --Patrick (talk) 21:15, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

That looks great to me. II | (t - c) 21:28, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Me too. Remember (talk) 00:34, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Niiice. -FrankTobia (talk) 04:55, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks. I added it to the WTO pages already. --Patrick (talk) 05:40, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Welcome message for new members

I thought it would be useful to create a welcome message that we could post on new members pages. I drafted one at Wikipedia:WikiProject Economics/Outreach/Welcome. Let me know what you think. Cheers --Patrick (talk) 00:11, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

That's a fantastic idea. How would you feel about listing assessments as a thing to do? Right now the assessment page needs a walk-through and some sprucing up, but I'll get right on it if you think it'd be useful. Personally I think it would be nice to include (I've been looking for an excuse to kickstart the assessment department), but it's up to you. -FrankTobia (talk) 05:05, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Completely agree with you. What do you think the wording should be? --Patrick (talk) 05:09, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

I invoked WP:BOLD and made some changes to the template. Feel free to change them however you see fit. I'm also working on adding some content to Wikipedia:WikiProject Economics/Assessment; a watchful eye there may prove helpful as well. -FrankTobia (talk) 18:35, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Economics

The Economics article is currently undergoing a rewrite. Any comments or help would be greatly appreciated. --Patrick (talk) 07:08, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

What kind of work are you planning? Like a complete rewrite? If it's anything huge I would suggest helping with the Adam Smith collaboration drive until we decide to end it, so that we can focus our efforts. But of course I don't want to mess with the invisible hand. I do think that Economics is a ripe target for a WP:ECON GA-drive in the coming weeks and months, and I'll watchlist it in the meanwhile. -FrankTobia (talk) 18:13, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

It is undergoing a rewrite whether we like it or not. :) Skip's doing on OK job I guess, but his work should be paid attention to -- he has a very strong interest in technocracy, which isn't really what we want on the economics page. I've been reading his changes. II | (t - c) 18:35, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Yep, what II said. Basically, I just wanted more eyes on the page to make sure that everyone is happy with the changes. --Patrick (talk) 20:46, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Excellent – the more help the merrier! That article definitely needs a rewrite and could benefit with the help of a few more people. Gary King (talk) 02:17, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

I've added it to my watch list. Morphh ^(talk) 13:38, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

It appears to me that skip sievert is really not doing a good job. My level in English is a bit too poor for me to really help, but his actions somehow drive me to despair. MaCRoEco (talk) 01:08, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Maybe when you improve your English, then a bit, you can do a better job of explaining why. In the mean time... the article looks about 10 times better than the wreck it was. It was loaded with factual errors and in general appearance was ugly, poorly laid out... and confusing.skip sievert (talk) 01:15, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

Economics importance assessments

Hey all, I've been working on Wikipedia:WikiProject Economics/Assessment so WP:ECON can have a meaningful baseline against which to assess articles. Notably I took a first stab at importance assessment criteria, but it sorely needs attention from other members. Specifically I want the WikiProject Economics community to vet the criteria for each level, and to come to a consensus on some example articles that definitely represent the levels. I'm ready to have my suggestions torn apart :) -FrankTobia (talk) 23:34, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

It looks great. I just added in Adam Smith into the top cat. --Patrick (talk) 01:53, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

I think it looks good too. Great job! Gary King (talk) 02:17, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Nice! One thing I could suggest (from doing assessment with WikiProject Taxation) is to consider using the {{Grading scheme}} template instead of a custom quality table. Priority/Importance should be your own as it is specific to the WikiProject, but the quality of an article should be global. The custom table could become outdated and may not continue to reflect the standards or grading criteria for Wikipedia as a whole. Morphh ^(talk) 13:10, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Ah, I see now that keeping it updated may prove problematic. Right now it's a subset of that template: I wanted to remove FA and GA for brevity. But I think you're right in the long run, and I'll replace that table with the template soon. -FrankTobia (talk) 14:50, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

Economy of East Germany category

I stumbled upon this quite by accident. Most the articles are completely uncited/unreferenced eg New Course, Economic System of Socialism, New Economic System. I would love to help these interesting articles get WikiStandardised, but unfortunately I know nothing about economics. So I searched out you guys in the hope that one of you might like to show this area some TLC. Thank you for your time, almost-instinct 22:59, 13 August 2008 (UTC)

I tagged them as being under the purview of WP:ECON and assessed them, and gave them a once-over. Not sure where to find sources for these and I don't have much time, but I have them watchlisted now if that counts for anything. Thanks for the heads up! -FrankTobia (talk) 01:02, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

I'm wholly ignorant of these topics. From my ignorant perspective, it looks like they might benefit from a merger into a single article on "East German economic programs" or something? Cretog8 (talk) 03:12, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

Economic Systems sidebar

There is heated debate over at the Economics article on the use of the Economic systems sidebar. My position in the debate has been that there's one over-riding reason that use of the sidebar on that page is inappropriate which is that the Economics article is not part of that series. Another editor strongly disagrees with that reasoning. I would be grateful if others can either authoritatively clarify this issue or add their own opinions. Cretog8 (talk) 21:09, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

WP:ECON/A test case: Hicksian demand function

Lately I have been working on getting WikiProject Econ's assessment department up and running by writing up some importance criteria and starting to apply them across the project. Of course, I came up with the criteria myself, so I'd like to start building a consensus that the criteria are any good (it can't be assumed I know exactly what I'm doing).

So here's a test case I'd like everyone to comment on: the Hicksian demand function article. Pdbailey and I have been discussing it on that talk page since I reassessed the article down from High importance to Mid importance. My argument is that only broad topics likely of interest to the general public should be High importance, whereas the subject of this article is of more specialist interest and thus should be ranked Mid. -FrankTobia (talk) 06:12, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

FYI- Tulip Mania is a FAC

You can check it out here [1]. Remember (talk) 12:41, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Assistance for dispute

I would like to request the assistance of editors that are very familiar with Wikipedia policy and have a background in economics. The FairTax article (FA) has been under dispute since it appeared on the front page of Wikipedia in July. We're running into Raul's law #5, and personally I'm pushing the corollary of #1. An editor has argued (and continues to argue) that the FairTax, a tax reform proposal in the U.S., and its economic research are WP:FRINGE and that a large amount of sourced material should be removed. It was posted on the fringe noticeboard and again here (7 editors stated it was not fringe and 3 stated it was - 2 of the 3 editors for fringe being new). The material is sourced in accordance with WP:V/WP:RS and it follows WP:NPOV policy. Removal of such content would thus violate NPOV policy by removing sourced and relevant viewpoints (which would and does apply to either side). The editor has violated 3RR^{22 July 2008} and WP:NPA^[2][3] (although I have not mentioned it until this point). Being the only editor there at the moment to discuss the content, it's an 1 vs 1 dispute and it's starting to get ugly. I am no doubt being stubborn with letting new users violate what I believe to be policy on an article I've worked very hard on (as I'm sure many of you that have moved an article to FA will know). I'd like to get some outside viewpoints. Here is the current dispute if you want to skip the history. We're moving up the dispute resolution tree and I thought this might be a good place to gather some input before going to mediation or arbitration. Thanks, Morphh ^(talk) 18:39, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

First off, FT is a great article. No wonder it got FA status. I read over the content dispute and it appears that the user clearly has a view to push. I added it my watchlist. I'm not quite ready to get fully into the dispute but I'll make sure that he discuss all removal of info. --Patrick (talk) 23:24, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

The sources could possibly still improve, but I imagine you've done the research and there isn't a whole lot of academic journal analysis? That's not to say that there aren't a lot of good, "unpublished" economics working papers. I just searched IDEAS for FairTax and only 4 papers come up.[[4] Kotlikoff is involved with all of them, and 3 of them are NBER working papers, which means they're somewhat vetted, I think. II | (t - c) 08:59, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

Whenever a new study or a better sourced is published, we try to update the article to reflect the best sourcing possible and include the latest data. I'm sure some existing sources could be improved, but I'm just not sure that's the best use of our time on an article that has already reached a high quality level (I'd rather be bringing other articles to FA quality). What this editor is doing though is removing content based on his/her own opinion as to what are falsehoods, misrepresentations, or unsubstantiated statements without proper review. While peer-review research is highly sought, it is not basis of requirement for including content. The material is their point of view, which is properly sourced and attributed. I have not engaged in WP:POINT by removing critical content based on his same standards, which would completely strip the article. The editor has called the FairTax proponents extremists (although it is cosponsored by 17% of the House, had gained support of over half the Republican presidential candidates and one Democrat, and sold two NYT bestselling books). He compares this to creationism, suggesting supporters statements are fringe economics and should be removed if not supported by peer-review research. He lost the dispute in the Fringe Noticeboard but continues to delete content based on these arguments, and other sourcing claims. If you're for such a plan or not seems irrelevant, this is an extreme use of guidelines to push for content removal of a point of view. I hope more of you can engage in the conversation, as this is what we need. I'm willing to reach some compromises but some base of policy must be established as we are just about in threat mode. I don't want to edit war over this and would greatly appreciate some outside clear heads joinging in. Morphh ^(talk) 13:51, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Here's how I see the situation: you've already taken this issue to the fringe noticeboard, where the consensus was that his edits are without consensus. Still he keeps making these edits, and does not respond to reasoned arguments. It sounds like if this continues, it's only wasting everyone's time and increasing WikiStress beyond normal levels. So my suggestion is to bring it to mediation, or to WP:AN/I if it gets to that point. Some editors just can't be reasoned with. Hopefully it doesn't get to that point, but better not to throw good time after bad.

I did try to follow the discussion, but I didn't feel comfortable enough jumping in. I'll try again. -FrankTobia (talk) 16:15, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

I've added the article to Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2008-08-19 FairTax. Perhaps this will move us to a point where we can better discuss specific content. Thanks Morphh ^(talk) 15:52, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

FYI - Mediation has started and there is an area for others to comment. Thanks Morphh ^(talk) 20:12, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Based on the moderators comments, we're clearly going to need some more people in this discussion. Morphh ^(talk) 22:40, 19 August 2008 (UTC)

Adam Smith as father of economics-History of economic thought

Over at History of economic thought, we're having much the same argument as at Talk:Adam_Smith#Smith_as_father and Talk:Adam_Smith#Father_of_Economics.3F about whether Adam Smith is widely considered the father of economics. At the history article, there seems to be an impasse which could use more input. Cretog8 (talk) 02:51, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

I say we just get rid of this character Adam Smith. If he isn't the father of economics then he clearly he is just some random lunatic who wrote about damn pins. I might as well tag the article as non-notable, fringe, and BLP since we have no proof that he could have fathered economics, he might have actually been the mother. Hopefully we can speedy delete this guy off wikipedia for good. --Patrick (talk) 04:27, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

Heh. In any case, I haven't been making any headway toward resolving this spat. Skip's discussion on the three talk pages above looks like forum shopping. Since all of our well-intentioned responses haven't met with progress, I believe we should start thinking about some form of outside assistance. -FrankTobia (talk) 10:38, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

To me it seems simple, if you can't find reliable sources indicating that he's thought to be the father of economics then don't say so. Zain :Ebrahim (talk) 15:47, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

My point... also. Any one can say any thing... and if enough people repeat it, it may turn into an urban myth or simple disinformation... but that should not slide over as a source for an encyclopedia. Right?

The sentence as it stands puts Smith as a mythological Libertarian Ayn Rand minor deity which is pretty pathetic as to neutral phrasing, because it has been made then into a political dispute and not even an economics one, it is some kind of political argument being made. At least one of the people supposedly upset by rephrasing it slightly to make it understandable, is a self identified, what is referred to as a libertarian, which is dandy... but ... so it smacks really of Libertarian political bias, as it is now. That is not good for neutrality. Is it?

The statement about Smith is patent nonsense really. The article suffers because of it. He may have gotten at the way we think of political economy, but it is nonsense to say he is the father of economics... That would be the priest kings of Mesopotamia.... Now the sentence as is, is a classic of this type.

It is a content dispute because of poorly phrased material. That is all it is. Finally.. this is a term used to break down a certain style of writing that has no place when trying to explain a subject : Weasel words are small phrases attached to the beginning of a statement, such as "some argue that..." or "critics say...", etc.. A serious problem with weasel-worded statements, aside from their veracity, is that their implication is misleading or too vague to substantiate. One problem with weasel words is that they can imply a statement is true when it may be no truer than its inverse. For example, an editor might preface the statement "Montreal is the best city in the world" with a disclaimer: "some people say that Montreal is the best city in the world". This is true: some people do say that Montreal is the best city in the world. The problem is that the reverse is true as well (some people say Montreal is not the best city in the world, and some go further and say that it is the worst), and it is thus easy to write a misinformed, slanted article composed of nothing but 'facts' like these, using media to spread hearsay, personal opinion and propaganda. All it takes is for somebody to add "Critics have asserted that..." to a statement, and there is a danger that the casual reader will take their word for it.skip sievert (talk) 16:10, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

Zain, I agree that it should be that simple, and to my understanding I found just such a reliable source, which is referenced. It's a published survey of the content of economics textbooks. As I posted over at Talk:History_of_economic_thought#Smith_.2F_father_.2Fetc: The Hoaas&Madigan article is a survey of "10 of the top-selling principles textbooks in the field". In the article (p.528) they say, "In general, the texts are quite ready to give Smith credit for being the father of economics...".

I expect Skip and I have said all that we have to say on this, but if that reference is inadequate for some reason, that can be considered. All the same, we're going into silly territory. Adam Smith is widely considered the father of economics, that's plain as day. It's not a ref for WP, but this search helps to make that clear for someone who isn't already aware of it. The question is then not a matter of whether we say it, but what's a good source. I've put in one source, I would be quite content if someone finds what they see as a better one. I'm not bothering to search for other sources because I don't think any source would be adequate to resolve this argument. CRETOG8(t/c) 17:12, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

Just about any thing is better than what is there now... Example Smith was an 18th century Scottish moral philosopher, whose impulses led to (many of) our modern day theories; his work marks the breakthrough of an evolutionary approach which has progressively displaced the stationary Aristotelian view. http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Biographies/Philosophy/Smith.htm

No weasel words there and I can easily make the citation and put that into the article instead of the misbegotten current sentence which is not really saying much of any thing that is accurate or true. It appears that a weasel words sticker may have to be put on the sentence now used.skip sievert (talk) 17:16, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

Please see Talk:Adam Smith for a rebuttal. -FrankTobia (talk) 02:40, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Frequently viewed articles

In case you didn't see the announcement, we now have a list of Frequently viewed articles. It is one of the most interesting things I've seen in awhile and a great way to focus our efforts to improve econ related articles. --Patrick (talk) 16:30, August 18, 2008 (UTC)

Cool - this should definitely be considered as part of the priority assessment. Morphh ^(talk) 14:41, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Economics in practice

This section (Economics in practice) of the Economics article needs attention. It could use an overall direction and flow of information... formatting etc. The economics article is at the point of almost looking good right now except for a few things. Could you all take a hard look at that section? skip sievert (talk) 15:57, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks to Imperfectly Informed who does not say a lot but just redid the section area in question to really good results.skip sievert (talk) 16:24, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps a Barnstar is in order. Morphh ^(talk) 16:34, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

publications

List of scholarly journals in economics all need the banner added... go to town. Pdbailey (talk) 22:57, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

I make a motion that the default importance be Low; that is, only rate it higher if there's some compelling reason. Discuss on WT:ECON/A if there's ambiguity. -FrankTobia (talk) 00:32, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

I would agree, but doubt there are articles with importance above low. Even the most important publications are not necessary for a great encyclopedia. Pdbailey (talk) 12:25, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Policy Laundering and the WTO

There is currently a discussion taking place at World Trade Organization on whether a sentence should be put in the article on Policy Laundering. I don't believe that the sources provided have really made the case for inclusion. It would be useful to have more people involved in the conversation. Thanks --Patrick (talk) 21:22, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Economics sidebar

Over at the Economics article, there has been some demand for a sidebar to liven up the lead. I have copied the sidebar from Sociology to Template:Economics_sidebar as a starting point. I consider this experimental, since I'm not sure such a sidebar is a great approach, but it's probably worth the experiment. I strongly suggest that we try to achieve consensus on the sidebar itself before we start using it in articles, because I foresee a replication of many of the debates which have occurred in articles recurring in regards to the sidebar. It's also not clear whether there's agreement on what the sidebar should be (should it be designed specifically for that one article or for economics articles in general). CRETOG8(t/c) 23:00, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Additional comments from the project members would be great. I think we have a good start but would like to gain some consensus on what to include and how to best organize it. The discussion is taking place on the Template talk and the Economics talk. At some point here, we may just be bold and start applying the template. Issues will work themselves out. :-) Thanks Morphh ^(talk) 21:05, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

We've taken the next step with the sidebar and over the weekend have applied it to many of the articles listed on it. There are still a couple outstanding discussions: Should we remove "Part of a series on"?, Should we removed the portal link?, Should we modify "Categories and links"? :-) Please let your thoughts be known - inclusion / removal of the portal link seems to be the biggest issue at this point. While we may want to give it a couple more days to work out discussion points, feel free to apply it to the economics articles you think would be appropriate. Morphh ^(talk) 12:39, 02 September 2008 (UTC)

Changes to a relatively high traffic picture

I just wanted to let people know in a central location that I changed Image:AdamSmith.jpg recently. The previous image showed Smith facing the reader's left. The "new" image shows the original alignment and of the profile. I would not have changed the image around just to "correct" the orientation (I'm also aware that the MOS suggests aligning the eyes to face the text) but the reason the image is facing right is important for historical purposes. It turns out that Smith very rarely sat for pictures (a long process before cameras and film) and one of the only portraits 'drawn from life' of smith was an enamel paste medallion of Smith in right facing profile (evidently the artist--James Tassie--could work without requiring Smith's full attention). Most following profiles and sculptures were made using the medallion as a model, not Smith. The references for this are cited in this revision of the Adam Smith wikipedia page. Each reference is fully web available and searchable. If people want to fix my messes by copping or adjusting the image so it fits infoboxes like the last one did, please do so. I would ask that you not reverse the image without some consensus to do so. (unless you are going to do so as part of WP:BRD). Protonk (talk) 04:52, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the explanation. I was all ready to show off my awesome image editing skills by flipping it over the vertical axis. At the same time, I do think we should try to have the eyes facing the text as much as we can (like in some of the pictures below). But I'll take this to Talk:Adam Smith once it bothers me enough. -FrankTobia (talk) 03:55, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

biography infoboxes

Some economist articles are using Template:Infobox economist (such as Thomas Malthus and Robert Higgs), and some are using Template:Infobox_Scientist (such as Robert Mundell), and then I guess some are using Template:Infobox Philosopher (such as Adam Smith).

My little mind's hobgoblin is raising a ruckus. It probably doesn't really matter, but I'd feel more content if there was a consistent choice (accepting there might be exceptions where an economist is also well-known as an economist a philosopher in general). The Template:Infobox economist seems weird to me for many economists, particularly living ones, just due to the History of economics link up top.

Any preferences for a standard choice? CRETOG8(t/c) 21:16, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

I think I like the economist infobox the least. I prefer the Scientist infobox slightly over the Philosopher infobox. The Scientist infobox has more fields and I just like the presentation better. I do like the show/hide in the Philospher infobox with the influances and influanced. Morphh ^(talk) 1:13, 03 September 2008 (UTC)

Natural resource economics

This has pretty much gone from a stub to a more developed article today. More information is needed in the body of this article (Areas of discussion) Natural resource economics... Referenced and cited information especially. skip sievert (talk) 01:57, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Is there a reason why does that article not cite Hotelling's paper on use of exhaustible resources? I would probably put that in there. Protonk (talk) 02:37, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

Please do.. it can use all the help it can get. No doubt that paper is something used or studied and connected. Right now the information is a general guide to the study... some of the main points.. but needs finer points and incidentals. skip sievert (talk) 15:52, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

there is a link. And if the article doesn't cite that paper, it doesn't really cover the main points...at least as an economics article. Protonk (talk) 16:25, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Added this so far... still needs more help with citations and references though:

Hotelling's rule is a 1931 economic model of non-renewable resource management by Harold Hotelling. It shows that efficient exploitation of a nonrenewable and nonaugmentable resource would, under otherwise stable economic conditions, lead to a depletion of the resource. The rule states that this would lead to a net price or "Hotelling rent" for it that rose annually at a rate equal to the rate of interest, reflecting the increasing scarcity of the resource.

The Hartwick's rule provides an important result about the sustainability of welfare in an economy that uses non-renewable resources.

See also: World3, Low-carbon economy, and Hubbert's peak

End skip sievert (talk) 18:38, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Business Cycle needs to be fixed

The article on Business Cycles is a mess. It really needs to be fixed ASAP. If anyone has an hour or two, could they clean it up a little. Thanks, much appreciated. lk (talk) 15:30, 4 September 2008 (UTC)

Karush–Kuhn–Tucker conditions

Should Karush–Kuhn–Tucker conditions be in this project? It's technically just a math topic, but since it's a basic tool for optimization, it's also a part of most economist's education. CRETOG8(t/c) 16:03, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Earlier today I was asking myself the same question about Lagrangian multiplier. I decided that for topics which are entirely math topics, which are useful to other disciplines, that we shouldn't include it in WP:ECON. Maybe an exception should be if the article has or should have a subsection on economics topics? I dunno, but my gut reaction is let math be math. -FrankTobia (talk) 23:36, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Natural capital

I found this article which does not seem to be categorized and it was a total odd looking mess yesterday. I tracked down what it is about and added sections and information to it. Natural capital It still is just mostly thrown together information .. but I tried to organize it as to topic .. subject.. etc. Check out the page history.... It has not been edited very many times.. and try to figure out where this information should be categorized... so other people can find it or work on it. It might be a good idea to take a look at the edits previous to my working on it... I was surprised to see that such a mess was even there. As near as I can tell this is an economic article... probably more connected with ecological economics... than environmental economics. Classification? Ideas? skip sievert (talk) 15:53, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Input requested regarding Austrian School

Please see WP:ANI#Sockpuppetry and POV-pushing on Austrian School and related topics. Thank you. — Satori Son 21:18, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

This is a problem for WP:Economics, though not an easy one to fix. Thanks to the enthusiasm of some Austrian school fans, we have very extensive coverage of relatively obscure Austrian economists and ideas, while much more notable mainstream economists and theoretical contributions are omitted or inadequately covered. As an Inclusionist I wouldn't want to see these articles deleted, but it does produce a rather unbalanced picture.JQ (talk) 08:18, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

It is tricky. I'm not so much of an inclusionist. While I wouldn't want to see the articles removed, I'm concerned with the prominence of the Austrians in general economics articles. Pretty randomly, here's two examples. First, compare the "what links here" for Robert Lucas and for Murray Rothbard. It's quite a discrepancy. Second I noticed that one of the articles that linked to Rothbard was Economics (textbook). I was surprised, so I checked it out, and three of the external links are to mises.org, including a review by Rothbard, a comparison of Samuelson's textbook to Rothbard's, and a "continuing legacy" long-after-the-fact review that includes a good bit of Rothbard. That's weird. As for the Austrian school in general, I'm agnostic, because frankly even after reading the article I don't get it and I've never been much of one to categorize things into "schools of thought". I'm pretty confident that Murray Rothbard is not a prominent economist outside Austrian/libertarian circles.

Does this mean that folks have been slacking in filling in mainstream material or that Austrians have been over-enthusiastic? CRETOG8(t/c) 08:56, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

A bit of both, I'd say. I removed the external links from Economics (textbook), which were clearly inappropriate. OTOH, I don't see any value in deleting biographical articles, and if they err on the side of generosity, that's better than the opposite.JQ (talk) 10:11, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

• Jiminy Cricket! Look at Business cycle! I mean, granted, the Austrians school is kind of famous for their interpretation of cycles (Mostly because, at the time, they and the Marxists had the only two coherent theory that explained them without resorting to pixie dust), but in that article there is "the austrian view" and "everyone else's". Geez. Protonk (talk) 14:18, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Business cycle is a mess, and needs to be cleaned up. There is some good stuff in RBC that can be incorporated. lk (talk) 20:55, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

The trouble with the Austrian school editors here is not that there are too many biographies of Austrian economists. The trouble is that they want to have the 'Austrian viewpoint' prominently and favorably displayed on many mainstream economics topics. And they are very pushy about it. I just walked into an edit war on Inflation last week. It would be helpful if the project members could visit this page and leave some comments about how much weight the 'Austrian viewpoint' should have in Econ Wikiproject pages like Inflation and Business cycles. lk (talk) 20:55, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Satori, thanks for beginning this discussion. The most frustrating part of this is that battling the Austrian creep (capitalize if you prefer, although it would be plural) in articles is that it is taking a tremendous amount of time from doing productive editing. I wish there were a better way.--Gregalton (talk) 02:16, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

During Congressional hearings on monetary policy before the Committee on Financial Services in 2000, Alan Greenspan, at the time chairman of the Federal Reserve, when asked about the view of the Austrian school on inflation and business cycles said the following: "I will be glad to give you a long academic discussion on the Austrian school and its implications with respect to modern views of how the economy works having actually attended a seminar of Ludwig Mises, when he was probably 90, and I was a very small fraction of that. So I was aware of a great deal of what those teachings were, and a lot of them still are right. There is no question that they have been absorbed into the general view of the academic profession in many different ways, and you can see a goodly part of the teachings of the Austrian school in many of the academic materials that come out in today's various journals, even though they are rarely, if ever, discussed in those terms. [...] So all I can say is that the long tentacles, you might say, of the Austrian school have reached far into the future from when most of them practiced and have had a profound and, in my judgment, probably an irreversible effect on how most mainstream economists think in this country." [5] -- Vision Thing -- 07:56, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Most would agree that aspects of the Austrian school teachings have indeed been incorporated into mainstream economics. One can't, however, hide behind the shield of a loose "school" name association when there are several distinct generations and representatives of various levels of credibility. To put it another way, the credible parts were absorbed into mainstream economics generations ago, and no-one identifies it that strongly with Austrian school. What's left are other bits. So, I would argue what we have are marginal theories and approaches being pushed using the Shibboleth of the "Austrian school." This is what the discussion is about - precisely those parts that have not been incorporated into mainstream economics (i.e. the Austrian school as distinct from mainstream economics).

As for Greenspan's commentary: you left out the question and who was posing it (Ron Paul). The question was "And my question dealing with this is, where do the Austrian economists go wrong? And where do you criticize them and say that we can't accept anything that they say?". Greenspan carefully avoids the question and makes nice noises about some Austrians. It's not politic for Fed chairman to be more, ahem, robust in their responses.--Gregalton (talk) 09:09, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

The problem can be seen pretty clearly in Inflation. The "Austrian" view is essentially just the quantity theory, put forward in a dogmatic fashion and with a lot of rhetoric about (a) the evils of governments and central banks and (b) the importance of saying the word "Austrian" as often as possible. As Gregalton says, the important insights of Hayek and others are mainstream and what remains is the shibboleth of the "Austrian school." This is, in fact, pretty much true of the surviving remnants of Institutionalism, but that doesn't seem to cause such a problem here. JQ (talk) 11:59, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

You are talking about "mainstream economics" like something solid and unified. That is not the case. Within mainstream economics there are different currents and views on the same subjects. Greenspan clearly identifies the Austrian School as one of the schools whose opinion matter, and if you are not Bernanke in disguise I don't think that your opinion matters more than his when it comes to monetary policy, inflation and business cycles. -- Vision Thing -- 13:15, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Besides the issues of politesse which Gregalton mentioned, Greenspan spoke of the Austrian school in a historical sense, "its implications with respect to modern views", "what those teachings were". He then says (without any specifics) that the good bits have been absorbed. It doesn't sound as if Greenspan thinks listening to modern Austrians has any benefit where they disagree with mainstream economics. As for "mainstream economics", it's a shorthand. People within mainstream economics can disagree with each other on many things, while still acknowledging that different sides of the disagreement are still mainstream. CRETOG8(t/c) 15:51, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Who is considered "modern Austrian" and who "old Austrian"? Greenspan mentions Ludwig Mises by name, so he can't be in the category of modern Austrians. I guess that giving prominence to Friedrich Hayek also shouldn't pose a problem? -- Vision Thing -- 16:16, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

I think we should concentrate this discussion in one place. That place might as well be here. If other project members get tired of seeing too much debate, perhaps we could move to a sub-page. To reference places where the debate has already been occurring, there is quite a bit at Talk:Inflation, some at Fringe noticeboard, and some at Talk:Monetary_inflation. (If there are others I've missed, please add them.)

It would be good if we can clarify exactly what we want to figure out. Broadly speaking, the question is, "Is Austrianism fringe economics?" Unfortunately, it seems like that question itself might be too vague because there's argument about what qualifies as Austrianism. What we really want to decide is when and how Austrianism should come up in economics articles, and when it doesn't belong. "Fringe" is also a stronger term than "minority". WP:Fringe implies that the view should be mostly ignored in most articles, while minority implies it should get a brief mention and explanation. So far, it looks to me like there's agreement that:

• The Austrian School is relevant historically, and so there shouldn't be a problem including it in "history of" bits. (As long as "history of" bits don't become overblown in places they're not appropriate, or cause confusion.)
• At least one Austrian economist--Friedrich Hayek--is clearly not fringe (regardless of whether some of his ideas are).
• Some ideas of the Austrians have become part of the mainstream.

There doesn't seem to be a lot of agreement beyond that.

If Austrianism is a moving target, we might have to narrow our focus to certain things. Would it be worth identifying specific fringe (or minority view) economists and ideas of the Austrian school? CRETOG8(t/c) 16:52, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

• It isn't fringe like "the Large Hadron collider is going to blow the world up", but is doesn't represent mainstream views of economics. Depicted as it is: a school which cropped up in the 19th century as a foil to both classical economics and marxism and saw a resurgence in Hayek's criticisms of socialism, it is fine. We can talk about the connections between the austrian school and historicism, but it doesn't make any sense to permit what is going on right now. Two major things are happening: one, on subjects of theory, the austrian viewpoint is presented primarily and uncritically. Two, standing articles and biographies are being subjected to criticism from the austrian standpoint as though that criticism is mainstream. Take the recent bit over Adam Smith. criticism of smith (while partly valid) is being inserted from the POV of an austrian school historian and presented as mainstream. That's nowhere near as bad as some cases, but it is an example.
• I think this is happening because there is a LOT of content about the austrian school online and not so much (at first glance) for more mainstream economics. Also, since part of the austrian school is a skepticism of mathematics, people interested in economics but turned off by the math (which appears rather early and gets pretty complex) find it easier to sympathize with the view that modern economics is "too mathematical", so the austrian viewpoint seems pretty logical (from that point of view).
• the right way to deal with this is to break it down into elements. Historicism can be treated well in some sense. Hayek (and his excellent criticism of social planning) can be treated well in another sense. I'm not so sure that the Austrian theories on monetary policy should be given a whole lot of present weight, but that is something that will have to be determined by selection of sources. A big problem with this issue is that the easy "mainstream" sources--Economics textbooks are notoriously ahistorical. Most econ textbooks proceed from what they sell as "first principles", and mention only briefly some antecedents. Histories of economic thought are tough to find for the level of detail we are looking at, especially recent histories which connect past trends and schools to current practice. What would be a good example (although it is VERY dated) is Schumpeter's history of economic analysis, but Schumpeter is pretty friendly to the austrian school. Thoughts? Protonk (talk) 17:22, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Very well put Protonk. I think we can deal with 'Austrian' POV pushing by aggressively insisting on reliable sources that are not self-published. Since 'Austrians' are seldom published by anyone expect their own journals and magazines, most of their writings are self-published, and are not reliable sources for anything except to verify what they say. lk (talk) 17:36, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

We've got to be careful there, as plenty of Austrian school economic historians are published in popular press books or have histories of the discipline published. We could probably treat this like modern Marxian economists. They exist, and are published in "reliable" channels (as strictly defined by WP:RS), but no one outside of the Marxists seriously believes their explanations for phenomena. Protonk (talk) 17:39, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

True but even that can be explioted. WP:RS does not distinguish between peer-reviewed journals that are never referenced in mainstream journals and then mainstream journals. As long as the editorial board does not include the author of the article and the journal is peer-reviewed it passes WP:RS and WP:SPS. Hence the undue amount of articles about pet theories such as binary economics. EconomicsGuy (talk) 17:45, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Right. That's why WP:UNDUE and WP:FRINGE are the guiding lights here. We can't get into that RS debate at all because it will just turn into a cycle of "No, it isn't reliable because no one outside of that little circle ever cites it" and "ZOMG, are you telling me that a peer reviewed journal isn't reliable"? My head hurts just thinking about that debate. Protonk (talk) 17:49, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

You're right, we have to go with guidelines WP:UNDUE and WP:FRINGE. I think we can establish that Austrian economics is 'fringe', since:

1. 'Austrians' are almost never published anywhere except in their own journals.
2. There are few (if any) self-identified 'Austrians' who are tenured faculty in the Economics dept of an accredited university.
3. Their theories are not taught in the undergraduate economics programs of any accredited university.

By that criteria, Marxian economists probably qualify as less fringe. Therefore, according to WP:NPV, the Austrian viewpoint should receive less weight than Marxian economics. Not that I want to see Marxian economics anywhere, mind you ;) lk (talk) 18:18, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Leaving aside the fact that you have no evidence for your claims, can you please quote relevant parts of WP:UNDUE and WP:FRINGE by which you established this criteria? To me it looks like it is totally unfounded in Wikipedia's policies. -- Vision Thing -- 18:36, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Actually, at least the first and third of those claims are simply false.

• The typical publication by the typical Austrian School economist isn't labelled “Austrian”, just as the typical Chicago School publication doesn't contain “Chicago School” in its title or body.
• I'm not aware of an Austrian School programme at an accreditted university, but most accreditted universities also don't have a corresponding programme for any other school, and there are certainly Austrian School economists at accreditted universities teaching courses from an Austrian School perspective.

Now, as to your second claim, I'd have to know what you meant by “few” and “self-identified”. Certainly, academic economists are not in the habit of wearing arm-bands. —SlamDiego_←T 16:58, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

I think WP:UNDUE is pretty clear on this issue. The Austrian school viewpoint is at worst case a viewpoint held by a significant minority, because it is easy to name prominent adherents. At best case it is a part of the mainstream viewpoint, but that should be established on a case by case basis, by properly referencing those views. -- Vision Thing -- 18:42, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Eh. Let's distinguish a few things. The "Austrian School" of economics is not a monolithic entity. There is a large political component that creates most of the influence. The political view of the state as an enemy of free exchange is pretty popular among notable 20th century economists (Post Hicks/Keynes) and many central bankers. The economic views of the austrian school are separate from those political views and don't really commonly reflect practice in the discipline. It hurts us to grant significance to a technical school of thought based on the shared politics of its adherents. Protonk (talk) 18:55, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Where are these "mainstream" Austrians being published? Do you have any recent examples of peer reviewed articles in mainstream journals? Should be a simple question to answer without relying on WP:RS's broken definition of a reliable peer reviewed source. EconomicsGuy (talk) 19:01, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't follow journals. According to this list (it was first Google result for "economic journals") of economic journals there are three journals dedicated to the Austrian school (Austrian Economics Newsletter, Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics, and Review of Austrian Economics). -- Vision Thing -- 20:13, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard details these guidelines for what is fringe:

• Obvious pseudoscience: Theories which are obviously bogus ....
• Generally considered pseudoscience: Theories which have a following, such as astrology, but which are generally considered pseudoscience by the scientific community ....
• Questionable science: Theories which have a substantial following, such as psychoanalysis, but which some critics allege to be pseudoscience, may contain information to that effect, but generally should not be so characterized.

The Austrian school is at best Questionable science, as it is not as well established as psychoanalysis, their benchmark case. This makes Austrian economics 'fringe'. As for the weight Austrian views should receive in mainstream articles, WP:UNDUE states that it should be in proportion to their prominence in reliable sources. Since Marxian economics is more prominent in peer-reviewed journals based in universities, and university textbooks, it is obvious that Austrian views should receive less weight than Marxian economics. lk (talk) 19:38, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

You are still presenting your opinion as a fact. Can you provide sources which criticize the Austrian school as a pseudoscience? -- Vision Thing -- 20:14, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Does Tyler Cowen count as an Austrian at an accredited university? He certainly has associations with Austrianism, haven't found that he identifies himself as such. CRETOG8(t/c) 19:41, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Tyler Cowen does not self-identify as an Austrian economist, and he has stated that he does not believe in Austrian theory. For example, see here [6]. lk (talk) 19:54, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Peter J. Boettke is economics professor at George Mason University [7] where he holds the course on Austrian Theory of the Market Process [8]. Israel Kirzner is economics professor at New York University [9]. There are also some other economics professors listed at Society for the Development of Austrian Economics.-- Vision Thing -- 20:19, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Visionthing: you asked for a source. Krugman on Austrian economics. "the "Austrian theory" of the business cycle—a theory that I regard as being about as worthy of serious study as the phlogiston theory of fire."--Gregalton (talk) 20:20, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

He is talking about Friedrich Hayek and Joseph Schumpeter. If he was talking about someone else his comment might even be worthy of consideration. However, since his target are two economists for whom anyone can find a plenitude of sources to defend their views on business cycles I don't think Krugman helps your cause. -- Vision Thing -- 20:41, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Part of a reason why Hayek received a Nobel Prize was his contribution to the theory of money and business cycles. From The Royal Swedish Academy of Science's press release:

"Particularly, his theory of business cycles and his conception of the effects of monetary and credit policies attracted attention and evoked animated discussion. He tried to penetrate more deeply into the business cycle mechanism than was usual at that time. Perhaps, partly due to this more profound analysis, he was one of the few economists who gave warning of the possibility of a major economic crisis before the great crash came in the autumn of 1929.

von Hayek showed how monetary expansion, accompanied by lending which exceeded the rate of voluntary saving, could lead to a misallocation of resources, particularly affecting the structure of capital. This type of business cycle theory with links to monetary expansion has fundamental features in common with the postwar monetary discussion." [10] -- Vision Thing -- 22:10, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

The Austrian school was historically significant. But currently, as Vision Thing shows, only a tiny minority of academic economists identify as Austrian. Since Kirzner retired, Boettke would be about the most prominent. He's a respectable academic at a good, though not top-rate school, but his influence is negligible. As far as the mainstream view is concerned, whatever was useful in Hayek (and to much lesser extent von Mises) has been absorbed, and the rest is in-group posturing. This situation is comparable to a lot of the schools that flourished in the first half of C20 or so (institutionalist, Sraffian, historical and so on) - there are a few people hanging on, and talking a lot about history of thought, but very little new work that anyone outside the group pays any attention to.JQ (talk) 22:27, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

VisionThing, you misrepresent what Krugman says. He is referring to current Austrian theory, when he says "as worthy of serious study as the phlogiston theory of fire". He uses Hayek and Schumpeter's response to the Great Depression as an example of how Austrian ideas can do real harm. lk (talk) 04:56, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

No, he is not referring to "current" Austrian business cycle theory. When taking about recessions and booms he mentions two "Austrian theorists" by name - Friedrich von Hayek and Joseph Schumpeter. -- Vision Thing -- 06:53, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

You are both right in a sense: he is referring to the theory (esp "Austrian theory" = phlogiston), and he specifically criticizes both Hayek and Schumpeter: "Except for that last bit about the virtues of recessions, this is not a bad story about investment cycles." This doesn't contradict the Nobel statement, which says Hayek thought about the effects and saw it coming; Krugman says their proposed solutions, however, contributed to the problem.

And the "hangover theory", the general worldview Krugman attributes to the (modern) Austrian school, comes in for particular criticism as a policy approach, a quasi-moral/normative asceticism that is "intellectually incoherent."

And the Nobel statement you cited pretty much says (in this area) Hayek animated discussion, not that his resolution of the issue or policy prescriptions were correct. The Nobel statement is far more specific and clear on the Socialist Calculation debate: "The Academy is of the opinion that von Hayek's analysis of the functional efficiency of different economic systems is one of his most significant contributions to economic research in the broader sense." The whole statement is exceptionally careful in terms of what it identifies as the reason for the award: "in addition to their contributions to central economic theory", (Myrdal and Hayek) "carried out important interdisciplinary research so successfully that their combined contributions should be awarded the Prize for Economic Science." This can be debated, but it is nowhere near the wholesale stamp of approval of Austrian economics or business cycle theory that you imply.

Reminds me of the Greenspan quote you put above: specifically avoids criticism (because it's not the place for it), while recognizing substantive contributions.--Gregalton (talk) 08:20, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

right. We should be clear to say that elements of the austrian school, especially those proposed by prominent members have a significant historical impact and may have some limited impact in the present day. I don't want to throw out The Use of Knowledge in Society, one of my favorite papers on econ in the 20th century. Nor do I want to say that all business cycles are the result of mathematical or mechanical processes. But the explanation offered constantly and stridently by the austrian school is...incoherent, moralist, and really not that relevant to current research. Protonk (talk) 14:18, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

We are getting side-tracked. I stand by my assertion:

• Marxian economics is more prominent in university-based peer-reviewed journals, in university published books, and in university-level textbooks. Therefore, according to WP:UNDUE Austrian viewpoints should receive less weight than Marxian economics.

Personally, I would prefer not to see Marxian economics either, but they deserve more coverage than Austrian economics. lk (talk) 10:36, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

• also, we can start looking at past issues of core journals in economics and see how far back we have to go before we find something talking about the austrian school...hmm, I wonder if someone has already done that... Protonk (talk) 14:18, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

This discussion didn't seem, and hasn't proved, at all promising. Nonetheless, I'm going to throw in a few comments here:

• From its third generation onward, the Austrian School has always punched above its weight (measured by population and professional standing) in any forum in which it is not actively censored. It's going to punch above its weight on Wikipedia because the censorship mechanisms here are too weak to keep it from doing so.
• Unless one believes that Wikipedia should be censored in order to actively suppress understanding of some things, there aren't too many articles on Austrian School stuff; rather, there simply isn't enough treatment of other schools.
• The intent of WP:UNDUE wasn't to delete articles or reduce articles or sections to stubs because of the inadequacy of other sections or articles. (And, if that had been the intent, then its logical expression at this point would be a wiping of the Wikipedia.)
• Enthusiasts of the Austrian School tend to have a greater interest in the history of economic thought than do typical economists. And, while the understanding of that history on the part of the typical Austrian School enthusiast is rather weak, it is nonetheless stronger than that of the typical economist. This lack of competence and interest handicaps the presentation of mainstream economics on Wikipedia. (It's also real source of deficiencies in mainstream economics “out there”.)

—SlamDiego_←T 14:49, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

The ongoing accusations of censorship are ridiculous. No-one is suggesting deleting or removing the articles on the Austrian school, nor ABCT. As lk put it above, "The trouble is that they want to have the 'Austrian viewpoint' prominently and favorably displayed on many mainstream economics topics." In many articles, the primary concern seems to be to have this viewpoint pushed prominently and repetitively out of all proportion to the significance or repute of those theories and viewpoints. And I'd rather have articles reduced to stubs when most of the text is regurgitation of business cycle theory that is already covered in other articles (again, out of all proportion).

As in the case of inflation: the modern definition of inflation is essentially not disputed. It is absurd for every mention of inflation to be followed by long-winded discourse on the claim that "inflation is an action of the state" - and for every attempt to tone that down be met by claims of cabals censoring information.--Gregalton (talk) 15:07, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

QED with respect to the unpromising nature of this discussion. I didn't, in fact, accuse anyone of censorship. If you feel that you must respond to me but cannot treat my remarks in terms of what I actually wrote, then you need to take a break from this discussion, and may need to avoid editing the articles in question. —SlamDiego_←T 15:25, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm going to agree broadly here. It is this sort of insertion of historical/polemical/heterodox viewpoint as mainstream or fact that makes the economics section of wikipedia such a crappy tertiary resource. I'll go to the Math project when I need to read about math, stats for stats, physiscs, and so on, but I won't go to the econ project for a what the mainstream economic literature says about most subject, because what you get is bunkum. One of the primary reasons that is the case is because we are constantly dealing with the insertions of these views well out of proportion to their impact or meaning. I'm not saying that WP:ECON will magically be fixed once we deal with the people who are socking and the articles which are blatantly outside of the norm, but it is a step. Protonk (talk) 15:15, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

That's simply an expression of a more general problem: Anytime that there are public policy implications of a science, a large share of participants are not going to behave like scientists or scholars. But, indeed, this problem doesn't simply cause Wikipedia to have lots of rotten articles on social science, it also causes the corruption of scientific mainstreams. *shrug* —SlamDiego_←T 15:25, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

That's a fair look at it. I don't think we're ever going to clean up Wealth or Finance or Taxation. We can, however, identify clear problems with disproportionate influence on certain articles and deal with that influence in a centralized fashion. I'm not saying this discussion is doing that perfectly, but it's a start. Protonk (talk) 18:31, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

The interesting thing with politically sensitive articles, such as inflation, is that mainstreamers cry sockpuppetry and the others cry cencorship. In most cases, they're both equally true. It cannot be a secret to anyone that mainstreamers have gone to great lengths to get ideological opponents blocked or even banned, essentially forcing them to what they call sockpuppetry. Gregalton is already legend when it comes to this, cheered on by certain admins.

At any rate, I don't think the inflation article will ever be at peace. One can wonder why. The only answer I know is that mainstreamers don't want anything else on the site, while there are more than a few who feel other views should be represented as well. Personally, I really don't understand why Wikipedia has to promote the politically correct view, on the expense of the historically and scientifically correct one.

Misessus (talk) 17:57, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, I've seen sockpuppetry by editors sympathetic to the Austrian School who hadn't been previously driven from Wikipedia.

Nonetheless, it's true enough that sockpuppeteers feel licensed to cheat on Wikipedia because the mainstream has a long history of ground gained by dishonorable conduct. (The casting of Hayek into the wilderness is only one of many examples, and the Austrian School are certainly not the only victims.)

But the mainstream, in turn, has believed that its own, prior cheating has been licensed by other considerations, and they simply feel further licensed by the counter-cheating. The major effect of sockpuppetry seems to be just to further corrupt the protocols of discourse. —SlamDiego_←T 18:22, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

The difference, Misessus, is that the users in question are proven wp:sockpuppets indefinitely blocked for disruptive editing and evading those blocks.--Gregalton (talk) 19:28, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

SlamDiego, do you see anything wrong with the representation of the Austrian school on WP, and/or anything which can be done to improve it? Again, for me what's bizarre is that one can (rightly or wrongly) study a good bit of economics and never hear of Mises, and LOTS of economics without hearing of Rothbard. On the other hand, if one gets one's economics education from WP, Mises and Rothbard appear to be more prominent than most Nobel laureates. It's hard for me to know how to take that, because in any given article I might think, "huh, that's a little odd, but o well", but on the whole its an extreme imbalance. (P.S. If it's not clear I don't want to see articles on almost any school of thought removed, and while I'd like to see those articles include criticism of the school of thought, mostly I'm too lazy to worry about it. I am concerned with over-representation of minority (or fringe) thoughts in general economics articles.) CRETOG8(t/c) 19:45, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

• Well, first, I haven't really surveyed the economics articles on Wikipedia, because I have been too horrified by what I have seen to want to more fully confront what is here. I tend to work on a small number of articles, and only step beyond these when one of the articles on which I have been working is no longer intolerably bad, and I have steeled myself to go look at another.
• Second, in many of the articles that I have read, the whole structure of presentation is fundamentally wrong, in a way that both manifests and encourages inappropriate modes of competition between schools of thought.
  Specifically, articles often should begin with an explanation of concepts — not conceptions, but explications of the most general notion of the relevant ideas — then walk the reader through what can be said about these concepts, and then proceed to conceptions as special cases. Where there are rivalries amoungst the special cases, “due” emphasis should be placed on each.
  Instead, what we get is a rush to put forward a particular conception as the concept that “real economists” use, in attempt to make rival conceptions either literally unthinakble or rather loopy, because they contradict what has been misrepresented as the concept. Each party in this rush is trying to beg the question(s) in its own way.
  I've been quite aggressive in fighting to transform articles of the second form into articles of the first form, and then to keep them from devolving into articles of the second form. I've had trouble on this score from Austrians, from neo/quasi/crypto-Ricardians, from mainstream economists, and from folk whom I don't know how to classify.
• Third, where I have seen Rothbard treated prominently, I tend (metaphorically speaking) to shake my head. He was perhaps a significant popularizer, but I am only aware of one meaningful contribution to theory on his part (a critique of Mises's definition of “monopoly”), and what I've read of his historical analysis is heavily tainted by lawyerly (rather than scholarly) argument. On at least one occasion, I removed a reference to Rothbard (after a challenge that I'd place on the article talk page failed to produce a satisfactory answer).
• Fourth, there's a huge potential difference between the historical significance of a subject and the historiographical attention paid to it, and this distinction is quite relevant to Austrian School economics. (For example, James D. Hamilton defines “Keynesian” as recognizing that nominal values can have ‘real’ effects (and Hamilton identifies himself as a Keynesian on this basis), yet Keynes himself explicitly said that he acquired this notion from v. Mises.)

—SlamDiego_←T 09:05, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

I think I agree with you, but I'm afraid I'm not sure what you mean. Do you mean we should stick to describing the concepts, and stop worrying and arguing about who to attribute them to? If so, I whole-heartedly agree.lk (talk) 09:31, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, mostly I mean that the presentation should not be framed to steer thought at the expense of enabling it. (For example, the article “Utility” ought not to have “utility” defined in a manner than presumes even the weak quantification that most economists have in-mind when they say “ordinal”, though a large part of the article should discuss various quantified conceptions.) As to attribution and ascription, I think that it is usually best handled in a “historical” section (or in a separate, historical article), though there are important exceptions. —SlamDiego_←T 09:47, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Now I think I disagree with you, but I'm not sure. Wikipedia is not a textbook, WP:NOTTEXTBOOK. We are here to provide a reference resource, not an education. Wikipedia is supposed to just provide a summary of the scientific consensus, plainly noting controversies where they exist. We shouldn't be trying to inspire or enable thinking, at the expense of conciseness and clarity. lk (talk) 15:01, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

I wasn't proposing that the articles attempt to function as a textbook, I made no reference to inspiration, and my assertion was that the presentation should not steer and the expense of enabling. Clarity is indeed the issue here. If the article is written to make it harder to think clearly about a theory other than that of some school of thought, then it disables the reader, which goes beyond failing to enable. (Thinking clearly about a rival theory is, of course, not necessarily the same thing as thinking sympathetically.) A controversy cannot be plainly noted if a conception has been substituted for a concept such that the reader cannot grasp the controversy. And if the reader cannot understand alternatives to consensus, then he or she cannot in fact understand the consensus. (NB: There is a difference between a reader who knows the alternatives and one who could understand the alternatives.) —SlamDiego_←T 21:12, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

All this philosophizing about the place of the Austrian school is fun, sure, but I don't think it does much for the encyclopedia. Probably better to identify articles overrun by these guys and report them here. Aside from inflation and business cycle, what needs to be worked on? People have pointed to Tax, but it doesn't seem problematic to me. II | (t - c) 19:15, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

SlamDiego has inserted some Austrian POV-pushing in the entries on Neoclassical economics and various entries related to Marginalism and Marginal utility, although some of this may just be idiosyncrasies, (such as his unwillingness to use the established label neo-Ricardian). The expert on Austrian Business Cycle Theory is Roger Garrison among contemporary Austrian school economists. And ABCT is incorrect. (See http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1097803) The authorities here are not Krugman, but Sraffa and Kaldor in the 1930s and 1940s and Paul Samuelson in th 1960s. I don't agree that the failure of mainstream economists to reference a journal makes it not a reliable source. As far as I am concerned, the following are all examples of reliable sources: Cambridge Journal of Economics, Journal of Economic Issues, Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, Review of Political Economy, and Review of Radical Political Economics. Some, for instance, Fred Lee (http://robertvienneau.blogspot.com/2006/09/where-do-correct-ideas-come-from-do.html), have documented the unscholarly mechanisms the mainstream uses to maintain their intellectual monopoly. 209.217.195.145 --RLV (talk) 17:05, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

I've glanced over both these articles and I don't see what you're talking about. It would help to identify sections, or use diffs. The only Austrian mentions I see in those articles are to Carl Menger, generally recognized as one of the early marginalist theorists. In marginal utility, the lead states that Marshall attributed the term "marginal utility" to an Austrian economist -- but that's about it. I was involved in the little neoclassical economics tiff, and it seems as if both of you guys could show a little good faith. :p I got the feeling that testosterone, rather than reason, was dominating the discussion. II | (t - c) 07:47, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

In the article on Neoclassical economics, SlamDiego convinced another editor, as you know, to take up his POV-pushing for Austrian economics.

But the article on Marginal utility is more interesting. Early Austrians, such as Menger and Böhm-Bawerk had a distinctive approach to utility theory. They described "wants" as falling into categories (e.g., nourishment or desire for alcoholic beverages). And within each category, they claimed, one could rank the importance of the want satisfied by an additional good. The wikipedia article echoes this archaic theory (for example, in the first paragraph), while giving the reader no warning that most mainstream economists consider this theory out-dated, insofar as they are even aware of its past existence. There is also quite a bit in the article about whether utility can be quantified. This is an area of dispute between Austrians and mainstream economists. Mainstream economists generally think that they long ago assumed utility doesn't need to be quantitative when they took up indifference curves and ordinal utility. Many just don't understand what Austrians could be talking about. Furthermore, the article may be in error when it claims the law of diminishing marginal utility doesn't require utility to be cardinal. I'm also unsure whether the bit on risk aversion (in the revival section) is correct. I'm also unsure about the in the first paragraph of the "marginality" section about discrete marginal changes. Mainstream economists, such as Debreu, have long ago framed their theory in terms of topology. Likewise, remarks about measures in the article seem to confuse measure theory with the theory of measurement scales. What do you think of the use of the phrase "mainstream economics" or "mainstream economists" in that article? Finally, you should read my comments as more amused than angry. -- RLV 209.217.195.99 (talk) 23:22, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

The reference to Marshall's attribution also wasn't something that I put in the lede or especially feel needs to be there, though it has the merit of avoiding a separate section on etymology (when a simple sentence is sufficient).

The fact is that, for a while, “Marginal utility” was a battleground because I insisted that its approach be fully general, instead of begging a question by presuming that utility had a quantitative property. (From the perspective of someone who thiks that the Austrian School notion should be unthinkable, this would be PoV-pushing.) And both “Marginal utility” and (especially) “Marginalism” came under repeated attacks by amateur enthusiasts of the labor theory of value who thought that they had telling critiques.

You, II, are pretty well-positioned to judge whether I've done any PoV-pushing at “Neoclassical economics”, since you were party to the discussion and have editted the article a few times.

And Robert is simply presumptive when he thinks that I mean to refer only to Neo-Ricardianism when I write something such as “neo/quasi/crypto-Ricardian”. There are a great many schools of thought that are Ricardian or represent a reworking of Ricardo; it would be wrong for me to use the label “neo-Ricardian” for all of them, needlessly tedious for me to enumerate them in a context such as this discussion. —SlamDiego_←T 17:53, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

It's off the topic, of course, but I do think that a good historical discussion of marginal utility would benefit from some perspective. Things like the "Ramsey hedonometer" seem so absurd today we forget that they were put forth by people who weren't crackpots. Likewise much of the 19th century marginalism history can be partially told as "when you have a hammer, everything looks like a nail". As the calculus of continuous functions allowed for deep analysis of those fuctions, proponents of marginalism assumed certain functional forms for no reason other than mathematical tractability (basically). The austrian school deserves a prominent place in that article as a source of fundamental criticism that was ignored by economists (largely) as outside the realm of the Kuhnian "normal" science. Protonk (talk) 18:23, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

While this discussion has been about the Austrian school, I'm wondering if, operationally, that's the wrong way to go. I suggest that it might be more effective to concentrate on particular sources. The Austrians on WP tend to be represented by very few sources, so it may be possible to address the sources. By doing so, a viewpoint which is so minority or fringe that it requires relying on one of these very few sources will be treated appropriately without any over-arching judgement of Austrianism. I also think that whatever comes out of this discussion should be usable by more than the handful of people who fully comprehend the place of Austrianism within economic thought. As a start, I'd suggest:

• Attributing ideas to the "Austrian school" in general should be very limited, mostly to history articles or sections. Otherwise, things should be attributed to specific authors.
• If an idea needs to be sourced to Joseph Salerno or Murray Rothbard (or others?), it is probably too fringe for a general economics article.
• If an idea needs to be sourced to Ludwig von Mises, it probably belongs in a "history" bit. (This doesn't mean his ideas are only important historically, but that those ideas which have caught hold can also be sourced to other, recognizably mainstream sources.)
• If an idea is sourced to Friedrich Hayek, the idea needs to be assessed on its own grounds (Hayek has been fully adopted by the mainstream, although some of his ideas are quite far-out by mainstream standards.)
• I have only the fuzziest notion of where Joseph Schumpeter should fall in this categorization.
• If an idea needs to be sourced to an Austrian-specific journal, then it is likely too minority to be included.
• If an idea needs to be sourced to an Austrian-oriented web site (such as lewrockwell.com (see below) or mises.org), then it is likely too minority to be included.

Those are suggestions. I don't know if that leaves room for Austrians to "punch above their weight" or it completely marginalizes them. I'm hoping that specificity can help against seemingly over-general arguments in this discussion. CRETOG8(t/c) 19:59, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

I disagree with Cretog8 on this one. This is very dependent on the article topic. Painting it with a broad brush regarding the entire economics field doesn't make sense to me. Their contributions \ criticisms should be weighted in whatever the particular topic point is. I certainly agree with using reliable sources, and it doesn't follow that the reliable source should be used as some method of exclusion. Use the basics... does the source meet reliable source requirements, is the material in proper weight with regard to the overall topic, do they present a viewpoint that should be included per NPOV. I don't care if they reference Rothbard, Mises, Hayek, or whoever - allow attribution of the content so long as it is from a reliable source. Don't get into... well if you're attributing it to Rothbard or sourcing Mises.org, we're not going to allow it. That seems illogical to me and I completely disagree with that approach. Target each particular subject point, include notable viewpoints, present all viewpoints without bias, presenting competing views in proportion to their representation. It should also not be asserted that the most popular view, or some sort of intermediate view among the different views, is the correct one to the extent that other views are mentioned only pejoratively (allow sufficent explaniation or summary of the viewpoint). More detail on the particular viewpoint can be contained on articles specific to those viewpoints. Morphh ^(talk) 20:42, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Consensus conclusions on the Austrian School

Before we step away from this issue, we should probably outline some consensus conclusions about it. I propose the following based on our discussions:

1. Although notable, currently, the Austrian viewpoint receives undue weight in many economics articles.
2. Modern day Austrian economics is a fringe view, held by a distinct minority of academic economists today. It is at best Questionable Science as defined by WP:Fringe theories/Noticeboard (Theories which have a substantial following, such as psychoanalysis, but which some critics allege to be pseudoscience).
3. Weight for the 'Austrian viewpoint' should be proportional to the the school's prominence in reliable sources, i.e. university based peer-reviewed journals, university published books, and university-level textbooks; note that by this criteria Austrian economics is currently less prominent than Marxian economics.
4. Coverage of the 'Austrian viewpoint' should not be unequivocally favorable (per WP:NPV), and should note the significant controversies they have with the mainstream view.
5. The Austrian School is relevant historically, and was part of the mainstream in the early 20th century. Austrian economists (Hayek being most prominent) contributed significantly to mainstream economic thought. However, issues of where ideas originated should only be treated in articles about the history of a topic or the history section of an article.

Let's try to work towards a list of statements that we can agree on. Please add to the list as you think fit, and add comments below this line. --lk (talk) 20:17, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree with your points except for #2. I agree that the Austrian economics is a fringe view, but see it as at worst a Questionable Science, rather than at best. Comparing it to astrology is far too extreme; further, though some elements of the viewpoint have been discredited, the school as a whole has adapted its view (as all must) to better fit the data. On the "Obvious pseudoscience - Generally considered pseudoscience - Questionable science - Alternative theoretical formulations" scale [Wikipedia:Requests_for_arbitration/Pseudoscience#Questionable_science here], I would put it between questionable science and alternative theoretical formulations.

This is a good summary; thanks for putting it together, Lawrencekhoo.

CRGreathouse (t | c) 21:50, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Agree w/ CRGreathouse. Might as well just file a content RFC for this page section to get some wider input. Protonk (talk) 21:52, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Agree with CRGreathouse. "Questionable" is right. In many ways, the problem is not with the views (which overlap to a fair extent with the free-market end of the mainstream) as in the insistence that the (remnant of the) Austrian School possesses insights denied to all others. That attitude has been evident in the contributions of Austrian editors here.JQ (talk) 23:20, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

The proposing of #2 is exactly the sort of thing that causes some enthusiast of the Austrian School to feel licensed to engage in the behaviors that many of us here find problematic. —SlamDiego_←T 23:36, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

OK ok, lets scratch out number 2. But I'm catching a lot of flak for this, so let me explain why I proposed it. Psychoanalysis is the benchmark example given for 'Questionable Science'. I think that in Economics, the Austrian school is less mainstream than psychoanalysis is to psychology. Also, the definition for 'Questionable Science' is that "some critics allege [it] to be pseudoscience". There is a significant number of economists who consider it to be pseudoscience – Krugman for example. lk (talk) 04:40, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

First of all, you need to note what some are doing here and you are not — distinguishing between the Austrian School in general and some of the more wild-eyed enthusiasts. Second, “mainstream” is about popularity, while “science” is about epistemological protocol (“scientific method”). The insights of the third and fourth generation Austrian School economists that are now widely accepted were once widely ridiculed; they haven't somehow become more scientific in the interim. (Rather, the mainstream has become either more or less scientific in accepting them.) Finally, as to Krugman, when it comes to dealing with economists who tend not to share his political convictions, he behaves in a grossly unscientific, unscholarly manner. (For example, in one section of Peddling Prosperity, he ridicules the “Laffer” curve as absurd, and in another treats it as something that was already obvious to everyone.) —SlamDiego_←T 05:56, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm not intellectually defending Krugman, but are you sure he wasn't mocking the current political presentation of the laffer curve? It is obvious that something like the laffer curve exists, but the most common invokations of it outside of an undregraduate economics class are politicians and pundits arguing that most taxes are on the right side of the curve. that is absurd. Again, not defending Krugman wholeheartedly, just noting a possible reason for that. Protonk (talk) 06:47, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm indeed quite sure. (I am amongst those who are highly skeptical of claims to know which side of the curve the United States were.) And this is hardly the only case of Krugman behaving egregiously in critique. I can rattled-off more examples if they're deemed useful to this discussion.

But the really important thing is that there is a difference between scientific opinion and the opinions held by those who are known as scientists. Even if someone has done some flawless scientific work, that doesn't mean that his or her opinion on all relevant matters is a scientific opinion. It may be perfectly accurate to claim that an opinion in not held by a mainstream of experts, and it may then be appropriate to reduce its treatment in Wikipedia accordingly. But to claim that an opinion is unscientific or (worse) pseudo-scientific because it is not held by a mainstream of experts is itself an unscientific evaluation, and deeply offensive in those cases where the minority are doing a better job of being scientists. —SlamDiego_←T 14:50, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

(And if we're going to let stand the definition of “Questionable Science” that “some critics allege [it] to be pseudoscience”, then there is no science that is not to be labelled “Questionable”, as there are always some critics who'll alleged it to be pseudscience, as in some neo/quasi/crypto-Ricardian attacks on mainstream economics.) —SlamDiego_←T 15:38, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Agreed that point number 2 is not needed. OTOH, I think the analogy with psychoanalysis is excellent. Some historically important ideas like the role of the subconscious that are now generally accepted, but little of value being done today.JQ (talk) 04:55, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't agree that "Austrian economics is currently less prominent that the Marxian economics". You haven't provided one shred of evidence for such claim. Also, Hayek is not only Nobel laureate associated with the Austrian school. James M. Buchanan is closely associated with the fourth generation of Austrian economists [11]. -- Vision Thing -- 13:25, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

If we're talking about economists strongly and positively associated with the Austrian School, then the list of laureates becomes quite notable. On the other hand, Buchanan has made it clear that he regarded himself as belonging primarily to the LSE tradition. (See his remarks in Cost and Choice on his own ties, and for his view on some of the interrelationship between the Austrian School and other traditions.) —SlamDiego_←T 15:00, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

In this interview Buchanan said that he doesn't object to be called an Austrian economist, and some other sources also classify him as such. The point I wish to make is that I don't know for any Nobel laureates who are Marxist or are closely and positively associated with Marxian economics. -- Vision Thing -- 18:44, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Nonetheless, Buchanan, while perhaps not minding the classification, doesn't use it for himself. I reiterate, though, that we can certainly find a significant number of Nobel laureates who have a strong association with the Austrian School and look upon it favorably. —SlamDiego_←T 16:38, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Okay, so returning to the proposed consensus above is there agreement on the rest of the principles? It seems that the above debate is mostly about principle 2 which has already been removed. I don't think we will ever agree on principle 2 anyway - if nothing else then because the definition of what is questionable science or not is inherently flawed as pointed out by SlamDiego. It would be nice if we could agree that what is in the "primary" articles on inflation etc. is what people would most likely find if they searched for this information elsewhere (textbooks and journals) and then agree that Austrian economics is notable enough to deserve full coverage in seperate articles and then keep the coverage in articles such as inflation to the same level as what is found in journals and textbooks. I've interacted with SlamDiego before - he is a reasonable guy so I'm sure some kind of consensus can be achieved here if we stay focused. EconomicsGuy (talk) 17:38, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

• Although notable, currently, the Austrian viewpoint receives undue weight in many economics articles. – This is fine but we should note that this may be a result of under representation of mainstream view, and not necessarily over representation of Austrian view. In such cases, proper solution is to expand articles in question by covering mainstream view at length it deserves.
• Weight for the 'Austrian viewpoint' should be proportional to the the school's prominence in reliable sources, i.e. university based peer-reviewed journals, university published books, and university-level textbooks; note that by this criteria Austrian economics is currently less prominent that Marxian economics. – Not only that there is no need for the last part about Marxian economics, it is also incorrect.
• Coverage of the 'Austrian viewpoint' should not be unequivocally favorable (per WP:NPV), and should note the significant controversies they have with the mainstream view. – This is fine, except I would add a clause "in cases when such controversies exist" because, as already noted, parts of Austrian contribution are incorporated into mainstream economics.
• The Austrian School is relevant historically, and was part of the mainstream in the early 20th century. Austrian economists (Hayek being most prominent) contributed significantly to mainstream economic thought. However, issues of where ideas originated should only be treated in articles about the history of a topic or the history section of an article. - This if fine as such, but it seems to imply that Austrian views shouldn't be discussed in the rest of the article if they are not in line with mainstream view. If that is the case, such treatment would be contrary to WP:NPOV.

-- Vision Thing -- 18:41, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

This may be automatically implied by #1 but I thought it worth saying that the criteria will depend on the scope of the article. Each article will have it's own weight assessment with regard to viewpoints. The viewpoint might merit brief mention on price inflation but a larger weight on monetary inflation. In an article that is more targeted to the minority viewpoint, they could have significant weight. I do think we have to be careful with #3 and this will depend on the article scope - while peer-review journals and university text are highly prized sources, they are not the requirement for inclusion or exclusion. The ivory tower is fine, but so long as the source is reliable, we have to consider the viewpoint and weight with regard to the article topic. I agree with EconomicsGuy that full coverage might be best in a separate article devoted to the minority viewpoint. I would think we want to maintain the details regarding their viewpoints, just that their weight in higher level articles may need to be decreased into a summary style, wikilinking, or see also tagging. Morphh ^(talk) 21:23, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

I am not an economist but I have been following the edit wars and the proposal seems broadly fair to me (with item 2 removed). I am sure that the disruptive element among the Austrian School editors will continue to complain of censorship whenever their blatant advocacy is curtailed. I don't know to what extent this is tactical and to what extent they genuinely feel oppressed. Either way, I feel that we can safely disregard this. If we follow these guidelines they will have more than adequate coverage of their views, in the appropriate articles, and absolutely no legitimate claims to censorship. They will still be punching above their weight compared to some other minor/historical schools of thought and perhaps one of the best things we can do is think about what other economic schools deserve to have their coverage expanded.

• On item 3, I feel that peer reviewed journals are not the only source of notability. Marxism, for example, gains much additional notability from the fact that it was put into practice in many states for a prolonged period of time. If the Austrian School was totally ignored by peer reviewed journals but guided the economic policy of an actual state somewhere, and was hailed as such its non-peer reviewed publications, then that would be an alternative route to notability. Of course, this isn't the case and I don't expect it to happen. I only mention it because there are other paths to notability. What these paths to notability all share is the principle that ideas must be accepted/acknowledged by the real world first and then they can be put into the encyclopaedias. The Austrian School can't be allowed to squeeze their ideas into the encyclopaedias as a way to promote and disseminate them into the real world. I feel that there has been far too much of the later going on recently.
• On item 5, I agree (relying on other people's comments as I lack direct knowledge of this) that it seems that the Austrian School is primarily only of historic interest and that the coverage should reflect this. I very much agree that they should not be squeezing in their historic arguments, and namechecking themselves, all over the place. However, item 5 should not preclude coverage of anything genuinely new that they might come up with, subject to it passing the other criteria and not being given undue prominence or promotional coverage.

--DanielRigal (talk) 21:50, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

The bald lack of civility is sweeping remarks such as

I am sure that the Austrian School editors will continue to complain of censorship whenever their blatant advocacy is curtailed.

is telling. The wilder-eyed Austrian School enthusiasts aren't the only editors out-of-line in this whole process. And. again, the improper behavior of their opponents is a large part of what makes them feel licensed to act badly themselves. —SlamDiego_←T 23:44, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

I can only speak as I find, and what I find is editors who openly identify themselves with the Austrian School, editing in a disruptive and propagandist way on what they perceive to be its behalf and complaining of censorship exactly as I described above. That said, I appreciate that there are other editors who are sympathetic to the Austrian School who are able to conduct themselves with responsibility and dignity on Wikipedia so I have qualified my statement above so that it is clear that I am not talking about them. I would not want to offend anybody who edits Wikipedia in good faith and within the rules. Sadly, it is often the most disruptive in a group who make the most impact and taint the perception of the others. It was not my intention to contribute to that. My point, which maybe I expressed poorly, was that we can't allow the unfounded complaints of censorship from the disruptive editors to deter us from rebalancing the articles correctly and hence I welcome the proposed conclusions. I am not sure what you mean by "the improper behavior of their opponents". I have been very circumspect about reverting the disruptive editors as I am aware that I am not very knowledgeable in this area. I have been watching the others who have been trying to deal with the disruptive editors and I have seen that they have shown considerable tolerance and repeatedly tried to encourage the disruptive editors to adopt a more constructive approach. They got little more than ranting and accusations in reply. --DanielRigal (talk) 00:10, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

The proper way to retract remarks after an objection has been raised to them is to use to place them within a <strike> element. Editing them in the manner that you have falsifies the discourse, so that the objection is made to look crack-pot. —SlamDiego_←T 00:26, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

I made it very clear what I was doing so that it wouldn't look like you misquoted me. I am not sure how I am supposed to make a change which adds a qualification by striking something out. I am not trying to falsify or misrepresent anything. --DanielRigal (talk) 00:37, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

It's only clear to someone who has proceeded past what otherwise looks like a crack-pot objection, rather than bailing at that point. A way to accomplish the edit with a <strike> element would be this:

the Austrian School editors the disruptive element among the Austrian School editors

though you could also have instead accomplished the same effect with the judicious use of brackets. I realize that you weren't trying to falsify the discussion, else I would have stopped trying to deal with you directly. —SlamDiego_←T 01:06, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

SlamDiego, You're being unduly critical of Daniel, who was just stating his honest opinion. I agree that there are perfectly reasonable Austrian economists editing here (I number you among them), but he has reasons for feeling the way he feels, as his interactions with 'Austrian editors' so far has not been very nice. Remember, Don't bite the newbies. lk (talk) 07:29, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

No. Were a person beaten-up by members of my ethnic group, he might “have reasons” for an “honest” grudge against everyone in that group, but that wouldn't entitle him to sweepingly insult that group. Further, DanielRigal is not a newbie.

And you're not even being consistent here. The vast majority of the problematic Austrian School editors are expressing honest opinion, certainly have reasons for feeling as they do, And many of the distruptive enthusiasts are newbies. —SlamDiego_←T 16:30, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

I am being consistent. Until Misessus started launching personal attacks at me, I have never critised anyone for being rude. I have asked people to be polite, but I try to be civil when I do so. Even with Misessus, it was only about a week after his persistent nearly daily personal attacks did I tell him that he was rude and to go away. lk (talk) 18:34, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

The proposition that you were tolerant of Misessus doesn't contradict the point that you are being inconsistent. We're talking about dealing with a class of disruptive editors. (If the behavior of Misessus were the only issue, then this whole discussion would be misguided; one should instead launch an RfC about Misessus.) —SlamDiego_←T 19:03, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Okay, now as to the present v. historical significance issue:

1. While the distinctive work that the third-and-fourth generations of the Austrian School which is now largely absorbed by the mainstream was done almost entirely in the first half of the 20th Century, it wasn't accepted by the mainstream in that first half. Hayek wasn't brought back from the wilderness until the '70s. (The Austrian School is far from unique for having suffered such delays. Consider the lag between when Ramsey produced his SEU model, and when Savage got people to pay attention to it.)
   (And the process of getting old work by the Austrian School accepted into the mainstream appears to be on-going. (The Austrian School is not unique in this regard either.) Albeit that Wikpedia is not a crystal ball.)
2. Many articles aren't in fact concerned with particularly recent work from any school of economics. In such cases, it isn't going to be appropriate to wave-away a school because it hasn't made (or hasn't seemed to make) a recent contribution.

—SlamDiego_←T 01:06, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Question for SlamDiego: Do you agree that Marxian economics is more notable (in the encyclopedic sense) than Austrian economics? Do you agree that in general articles (not about history), ideas should be presented without reference to what school they originated from? lk (talk) 06:53, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

I'd want you to define explicitly what you meant by “the encyclopedic sense” before I answered your question. But Marxism is certainly incredibly notable in some sense.

Marxism provided the intellectual infrastructure for systems that killed tens of millions of people, and I'm hard-pressed to think of what the Austrian School might have done that measures-up against that. If we want to look at peer-reviewed publications, then we can look at the vast body of academic literature turned-out by under some of the regimes associated with that killing. But what is one, really, to make of such things? —SlamDiego_←T 16:30, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the prompt response. Let me define 'notable in the encyclopedic sense' as: 'deserving of space in an encyclopedia article, as users are likely to want to know about the subject'. Howabout the history question? lk (talk) 18:13, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Well, under that definition, I'd have to say that both Marxist economics and Austrian School economics were more encylopedically notable than is mainstream economics, simply based on what people choose to buy and to read.

As to which of these two (Marxism and Austrian School) were more notable (under that definition), I'm not quite sure. As various authors have remarked, even ostensible Marxists typically don't seem really to want to know the details of Marxism; they just want some sense of assurance that a theory exists somewhere to vindicate their preferred social order. Meanwhile, popularizations of Austrian School stuff tend not only to sell well but to actually get read. How does one weigh such things?

I'd actually already answered the history question, when you previously asked it of me. Typically, history should go into a history section or into a separate history article, rather than being folded into the principal discussion, thought there will be a few cases where folding-in the history of the ideas will actually help many readers apprehend those ideas while hindering few or no readers. To that previous answer, I will add a note that sometimes a single history article could carry the relevant load for more than one non-history article. —SlamDiego_←T 19:03, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

I think I'd give half-hearted agreement with those points (again excepting #2). Half-hearted for two reasons. First, I don't see that there is consensus yet, as much as I'd like to see it. Second, except for #1, I'm afraid those points are too vague to be useful in practice--they're doing little but restating the general WP guidelines. So I'm not at all confident that consensus on those points will help in establishing practice. CRETOG8(t/c) 01:37, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

We have to be realistic. We are not going to solve an academic dispute this old on a Wikipedia talk page. That is unrealistic. What we can do is try to establish a consensus on how to present the differing views in a way that does not conflict with WP:UNDUE. One way to move forward would be to strike the part about Marxian economics vs. Austrian economics. The problem here is not how Marxian economics is covered and we aren't going to achieve any consensus by having that debate now. EconomicsGuy (talk) 07:18, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

I think these things are best handled individually rather than through a list of prime directives. Drop a note here on particular articles if you need help defending against undue weight issues, and drop another note if nobody seems to be responding. The lead of Austrian School has a source which says the school is between fringe and mainstream. That's probably right. II | (t - c) 07:47, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

That statement is sourced to an article written by Peter Boettke, editor-in-chief of the Review of Austrian Economics – not exactly an unbiased source. I still think that a list of consensus findings would be helpful. That way, whenever there is an edit war about Austrian economics, we can refer back to the consensus guidelines on this issue. lk (talk) 15:10, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

A statement of ostensible consensus should neither operationalize as little more than ventilation nor serve as a stalking horse on the other side of which is carried a bell, book, and candle. My impression is that more than one of the non-Austrian School editors here sense the danger of the latter. —SlamDiego_←T 15:33, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, I'm not being facetious here, but can I have that in plain English please? lk (talk) 18:13, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Eh, it's plain enough, really. —SlamDiego_←T 19:12, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

I really don't think this is that controversial. We should narrow the proposal to refer more specifically to issue advocacy and pushing of minority viewpoints as mainstream, but the basic idea is sound and not really all that censorious. I understand and appreciate Slamdiego's concerns but I think that he is taking this to mean something it doesn't. Protonk (talk) 18:23, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Protonk, I noted two mutually exclusive outcomes (empty ventilation and stalking horse). I didn't say which I thought to be more likely, nor did I say that the two were jointly exhaustive. (You can reasonably infer which of the two most concerns me.) —SlamDiego_←T 19:12, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

I wasn't talking about that. I was talking about the general bent of your opposition. I understand and respect that, but I think that you are making this thread out to be something it isn't. We've had this discussion before (the goatse AfD). I don't think that most editors are here to build an epistemologically consistent system. When we assume that they must, or we ascribe formalism to informal comments, the discussion of a relatively pragmatic matter becomes kind of byzantine. As I see it, we are faced with a practical problem. The austrian school is over-represented on the internet and on wikipedia for a variety of reasons (not least of all because they make most of the information widely accessible). Sometimes this over-representation comes in the form of the insertion of political advocacy into otherwise unrelated articles (a lot of the FRB and inflation problems). Sometimes this comes in the form of a poor balancing of economic views. These are problems, plain and simple. We, as a project, need a way to go about fixing these problems and gauging community consensus about what to do in the very likely event that they continue to crop up. this is not, in fact, censorship and it is not a proxy debate about the status of heterodox theories inside what is basically a normal science. Those two issues are important and deserve time but this is not the place to have the discussion. When I see this thread devolve into parsing of phrases and words I fear that we have lost the forest for the trees. That's all. Protonk (talk) 19:26, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

For good or ill, the participants here don't have a shared intuition about where the problem begins or ends, and we especially don't have a shared underlying sense of what constitute appropriate responses to problems. There is little chance of a happy solution period, and virtually none if people aren't made to be careful, in spite of all of the costs of care. —SlamDiego_←T 19:39, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

That's pretty well on the nose. Protonk (talk) 19:41, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Actually, my reading of the comments here is that we already have broad agreement on most of the statements (except 2 of course). The only contentious one left is number 3. Now, how about if we replace "currently less prominent than" with comparable to Marxian economics? Or ditch Marx, and say "comparable to the standing of psychoanalysis in the field of psychology". Or should we erase the sentence altogether? lk (talk) 00:18, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

As I have already pointed-out, declaration 5 is false. It is based on a mistaken presumption that work that has been accepted by the mainstream was accepted when it was done. Since some of the contributions weren't accepted until fairly recently, and Wikipedia is not a crystal ball, let's consign the Austrian School neither to an ash-heap nor to a pantheon. Instead, let's just agree that (as I have said) the history of ideas shouldn't typically be entangled with the presentation of the ideas themselves. —SlamDiego_←T 00:56, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Given that you agree that history should usually go into a history section or into a separate history article, how would you write number 5? lk (talk) 03:48, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Economics article ratings template broken?

When I click on a number in the economics article ratings, I get a blank page, even for ones with large n that are unlikely to move. What gives? Pdbailey (talk) 23:02, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

• post a link here. I've been fiddling with them today but didn't notice a problem yet. Protonk (talk) 23:10, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

try Category:Start-Class,_High-importance_Economics_articles, there should be 125 articles in there. Pdbailey (talk) 23:14, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

You're absolutely right. I'm going to try and unfutz that. Thanks. Protonk (talk) 23:15, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Looks like the old template populated those categories automatically. I just reverted my changes to the template. Protonk (talk) 23:27, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

okay, it is still broken! Pdbailey (talk) 23:32, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

try purging the page and refreshing the cache? Protonk (talk) 23:35, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

I just did that...not sure what to tell you. I might have done it. I might not have. The last update to that table was before I changed the template... Protonk (talk) 23:38, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes, that was it. A purge on this project page did not update the table, do you have to do that manually? Pdbailey (talk) 23:48, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

No, I just realized that the old template was populating the categories and the new one didn't. For come reason (probably a job queue thing), category listing and population takes a REAL backseat to other jobs, so it may take 5-10 minutes for a change (that repopulates those categories) to have an effect. Protonk (talk) 23:53, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

The problem is {{WPBannerMeta}}. I don't believe it allows combined class and importance templates, which we have been using on the old template. Most banners have separate cats. I asked on the banner talk page to see if it's possible. The assessment table gets refreshed every few days by a bot. --Patrick (talk) 01:39, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

hey, is it possible that the margins could be linked? so that I could see all stubs or all low importance articles? Pdbailey (talk) 04:08, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

The margins ARE linked; all stub economics articles are here. Gary King (talk) 04:12, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Oh, it's not the margins, but the actual text. Can the margins be linked too (admittedly redundantly). Pdbailey (talk) 04:12, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Taxation

As noted above by Protonk, Taxation is one of a number of problematic articles. However, it doesn't look to me to be beyond salvage. If we cut the anarchocapitalist and single-taxer nonsense down to a couple of paras and improved the section on optimal tax theory, the article would at least be useful to readers. Is anyone interested in giving this a try? As encouragement, I'd note that big improvements at Inflation seem to be holding for the moment.JQ (talk) 08:10, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't see anything problematic. What section are you thinking is the worst? II | (t - c) 19:33, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Primarily Taxation#Morality. This gives a vast amount of weight to WP:FRINGE views. But the article also needs a lot of reorganisation. JQ (talk) 19:43, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Certainly could use reorganization. The morality section spans 4 short sentences. I hardly see how that is undue weight, and I don't think the morality objection to taxation is fringe. Have you heard of Robert Nozick? Not only is the view supported by some philosophers (the morality "experts", for whatever that's worth), but it is heavily supported among the populace of the US and moderately supported among other English-speaking countries. That's why we re-elected Bush, despite his tax breaks for the rich -- because taxing people differently is seen as "unfair". That's why the rich retain so much wealth. II | (t - c) 20:12, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't see much of a problem with it. Those views are as old as taxation itself, and will likely never go away. Morality of taxation is always of significant dispute in the field, particularly when it is used to play class warfare and wealth redistribution. Revolutions and wars have been fought over it, politicians are elected on it. It does no good to dismiss these views and exclude them. It could use some work and cleanup but I don't think it is out of place or given any large amount of undue weight. Morphh ^(talk) 20:36, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

I have to go with Morphh here, the emphasis and presentation need a bit of NPV work, but it's more or less OK. Certainly much better than some other pages we need to fix. lk (talk) 21:04, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm working on it now. I'll probably merge everything into one "Morality" section that is two or three paragraphs. Morphh ^(talk) 21:09, 11 September 2008 (UTC)

Is Universal Product Code in your project's scope?

An IP user has recently added your project's banner to Talk:Universal Product Code, along with several others and other talk page banners. If this article is really in your project's scope, please rate it; otherwise please remove the banner. Thanks! Anomie⚔ 21:25, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

I found a flyer that says that these UPC codes are the Mark of the Beast, so maybe these need a Religion and Theology tag. ;-) But I don't think that they need an econ tag. —SlamDiego_←T 23:24, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

Looks like it has been removed; I agree with removing it. Gary King (talk) 22:28, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

I had been bold enough to remove it. —SlamDiego_←T 19:44, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Natural capital

Let me repeat this information as no one seems interested in it. I found this article which does not seem to be categorized and it was a total odd looking mess until making it into something. I tracked down what it is about and added sections and information to it. Natural capital It still is just mostly thrown together information .. but I tried to organize it as to topic .. subject.. etc. Check out the page history.... It has not been edited very many times.. and try to figure out where this information should be categorized (Economics, I think under energy economics or such related.. Ecological economics)... so other people can find it or work on it. It might be a good idea to take a look at the edits previous to my working on it... I was surprised to see that such a mess was even there. As near as I can tell this is an economics article... Classification? skip sievert (talk) 01:30, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

A bit raggedly, but on the whole tolerable. Unfortunately, we have higher priority articles that are in worse shape. 61.18.170.189 (talk) 06:14, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Another Austrian school issue

See Wikipedia:Reliable_sources/Noticeboard#lewrockwell.com. The site, owned by Lew Rockwell, is cited or linked in 350 articles. I can't possibly imagine that this could be within the realm of its importance in the field. Please give your thoughts at the reliable sources noticeboard. Protonk (talk) 17:08, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

This link in fractional-reserve banking is exactly the sort of thing we need to agree is just not appropriate. EconomicsGuy (talk) 18:18, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

I'm a potential asset to this wikiproject, but...

Wikipedia:WikiProject Mathematics has several mathematicians who dominate their niche of wikipedia. I am curious about how this economics-portal is managed? I would imagine that this has the most problems with spam. I have noticed lots of inaccuracies in finance related articles. Is there some statistics I can review? Such as an average of # of edits per day per article under our scope? I liked the table of breakdown of articles which are featured/good/etc... I'm interested in helping to improve some of the articles, but I want to get a feel first about this genera of wikipedia. I was trying to answer a question on the ref-desk, and the original poster was rightfully confused because our own articles are inconsistent, and sometimes just plain inaccurate.

here's the whole story about how APR is one just example. The finance articles may be on the same level as the average wikipedia article, but since I have a strong and powerful education in finance, I may be disproportionately aware of needed improvements. Anyways, I've ran into some bad experiences in wikiproject molecular bio, which could have been avoided if I knew their M.O. ahead of time, and simply opted out.

Thanks and look forward to a response.

I was impressed that the article on Beta actually talked about the R^squared, something my professor didn't teach the other half of Beta as a heuristic for risk. Sentriclecub (talk) 17:13, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

• It isn't really, managed, per se. You are welcome to help us out anywhere you like. I suspect you will run into conflicts with editors who have been the sole keepers of various articles for some time, but there is (as you can see above) very little strict project-wide management). Might I suggest that you start by revamping Mathematical finance (which is currently just a list) and help me improve Mathematical economics? I would be ecstatic for the help. Protonk (talk) 17:16, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Welcome aboard, we could use the help as many of our Wikiproject articles are a mess. Probably the best way to help is to scan the stub- and start-class articles for topics that you are knowledgeable about and just dive in. Be bold, as often the articles are in such sad shape that you can't help but improve them. If you run into any conflicts, just leave it alone and try another article, there's no point getting too involved with a particular article, as we have so many that need to be looked at. Or, if you feel that there's someone who's pushing a particular POV that's just wrong, drop a note here, and someone will look at it. best, lk (talk) 18:02, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, I'm not really interested in expanding stubs-its kinda like using a television for a nightlight. I think first priority is to collaborate and make sure all of our core articles are error free. I am willing and ready to start on the Mathematical finance and also Fundamental theorem of arbitrage-free pricing which is the first link on mathematical finance.

Secondly, I've noticed Annual percentage rate is not claimed by any wikiproject. Can we grab it? The first sentence is already prone to having people miseducated. Annual percentage rate (APR) is an expression of the effective interest rate the borrower will pay on a loan which is accurate, but completely misleading, because the APR is not an effective interest rate. It is an expression for one, but not one itself.

I'd really appreciate to have a fellow collaborator since I work best as a team player. Plus, I'm still not confidently familiar with how wikipedia runs. Even today, I had to ask if it is okay to correct someone's answer at the ref-desk, or if the guideline about never changing someone's post would outweigh the original asker's benefit. As a businessman, you look at guidelines as a means to an end, that is to use guidelines to facilitates goals, not the goal of to strictly follow guidelines. if a rule prevents you from improving the wikipedia reference desk, then ignore it however most people lose focus on improving wikipedia, which is what I want to do. I also believe that I'm outnumbered. Most wikipedians start out as philanthropists, then develop a feeling of ownership of wikipedia, and then make fewer and fewer edits to articles, and more involvement trying to contribute their wisdom to making wikipedia better, but not necessarily the content. Its these people that I don't work well with. I only care about one thing, and that is to put the “Big Three” textbook publishers: Thomson Learning, Pearson Education and McGraw-Hill Education, all out of business. I don't want to put them out of business, but I would have like wikipedia to have excellent and arguably perfect content. I'm all about content, content, content; but I always fear being ran off by someone with hive mind, who doesn't truely care about content. Sentriclecub (talk) 19:20, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia 0.7 articles have been selected for Economics

Wikipedia 0.7 is a collection of English Wikipedia articles due to be released on DVD, and available for free download, later this year. The Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team has made an automated selection of articles for Version 0.7.

We would like to ask you to review the articles selected from this project. These were chosen from the articles with this project's talk page tag, based on the rated importance and quality. If there are any specific articles that should be removed, please let us know at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.7. You can also nominate additional articles for release, following the procedure at Wikipedia:Release Version Nominations.

A list of selected articles with cleanup tags, sorted by project, is available. The list is automatically updated each hour when it is loaded. Please try to fix any urgent problems in the selected articles. A team of copyeditors has agreed to help with copyediting requests, although you should try to fix simple issues on your own if possible.

We would also appreciate your help in identifying the version of each article that you think we should use, to help avoid vandalism or POV issues. These versions can be recorded at this project's subpage of User:SelectionBot/0.7. We are planning to release the selection for the holiday season, so we ask you to select the revisions before October 20. At that time, we will use an automatic process to identify which version of each article to release, if no version has been manually selected. Thanks! For the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial team, SelectionBot 23:18, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

History of Money and Banking in the United States

I would be grateful for others to look at History of Money and Banking in the United States. The article is about a book, but I believe the title is misleading, implying the article is in fact about the history of money and banking in the U.S. Grateful for comments there/here.

Note that this is related to the discussion above about Austrian school, as the article effectively directly plugs the von Mises institute and Rothbard books (in or out of proportion to notability?). As far as I can tell, at least one of the contributors has a conflict of interest as a former (current?) employee of the institute.

This (to me) is a fairly clear example of advocacy, and as Cretog8 notes above, the amount of direct linking (bordering on linkspamming) to the Mises institute is out of all proportion.--Gregalton (talk) 05:07, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

Honestly most of those books on that list are probably not notable. we could really just merge the books into a list, but I'm not really interested in stirring up that hornet's nest. On a related note, I can't help but notice that rothbard is on out Wikipedia 0.7 list of topics...oh well. Protonk (talk) 05:11, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

I think much of the problem could be solved by simply retitling the article to "... (book)". Although, it would help if the article demonstrated notability. It might be notable, but the article only gives evidence that it's notable to the Mises institute itself. CRETOG8(t/c) 05:23, 16 September 2008 (UTC)