What’s Jackonomics?
This is the place I created to write whatever I’m thinking about, which rapidly turned into a place to write primarily about economics. But I write about any question of interest to me: does supply and demand really work? What can we really know about the world? What would happen if every world leader was brainwashed into believing they’re Donald Trump?
During election season, this is where I put out some relatively simplistic forecasting work. I also report on other forecasts and the likely consequences of different candidates getting elected.
Who are you? Why should I care what you think?
My credentials aren’t too impressive at the moment: a Bachelor of Science in Economics from American University in DC, with a 3.89 GPA, along with a year spent abroad at the London School of Economics. You should instead set aside the heuristics you use to guide your attention, and give what I’ve written a shot to know whether you should spend more time here. You could start with something relatively short, like the final part of Economics is a Science.
Why pay for a subscription?
Paying for a Jackonomics subscription is highly irrational behavior. You gain nothing from doing so; all of my content is free. You are donating to somebody who does not need money, instead of Deworm the World or some other charity you (hopefully) found through GiveWell.
But the supply curve of Jackonomics does slope upward, and that means the more people pay for my content, the more gets made. You are doing something that has large, positive externalities for other people who enjoy my work.
Ok, but what am I paying for? What do you believe?
Hm.
[I take a moment to ponder this question. I need to pretend that my worldview is more complicated than it really is, otherwise, my ego will crumble and the simplistic animal buried beneath my thick skin will rear its boorish head.]
I really like fairness in the sense John Rawls meant. But probably more than that, I love science. I love it for the simple reason that it improves our understanding of the world. From these facts alone, you can probably guess that I am on the “center left”, but I deviate a little bit from the center left in that I think about the world in a way more similar to Scott Alexander and other rationalists.
Driving much of my work is a sense that the typical person has a heavily distorted idea of what economists do and what the field has to say about the world. This is atypical for a science, so I think it’s unusually worthwhile to spend time defending it.
What should I read first?
“Economics Is a Science” is my longest non-fiction work, and it’s precisely what you should read if you want to learn more about the field, what makes something scientific, or if you just really don’t like Oren Cass. I also enjoyed re-writing Hayek’s The Use of Knowledge in Society and providing annotations to make it more accessible, and I think you might benefit from it—it’s one of the most important papers ever published in the field.
