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Difficulties at Austrian School

Hello, I've tried to intervene in an edit-war at the Austrian School article but User:Ron Paul...Ron Paul... (userpage is worth a read) has reverted my edits. Could some uninvolved editors with a basic understanding of Austrian economics have a look at this succession of edits and the reverted version? Any input appreciated. Thanks, the skomorokh 05:33, 13 November 2008 (UTC)

Does this discussion mean the conflict has subsided? CRETOG8(t/c) 05:52, 15 November 2008 (UTC)
User:Ron Paul...Ron Paul... is a self admitted sock of User:Karmaisking back at it again. The guy does not know how to be civil. Someone reported him and he's banned again. Is there any way to speed up the process? How does one go about getting socks banned? LK (talk) 15:49, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
The sock was blocked three days ago. Gary King (talk) 16:00, 21 November 2008 (UTC)
It would be a good idea to go for an immediate check of any new Austrian POV-pushing editors who appear in future. User:MastCell is an admin who knows what to do, and has dealt with User:Karmaisking in the past.JQ (talk) 01:09, 22 November 2008 (UTC)

G20 major economies

I just added this projects header to Talk:G20 major economies, where there's a discussion going on about what the article's name should be. Thanks. 68.167.252.47 (talk) 04:28, 15 November 2008 (UTC).

Improving The Wealth of Nations

The article is not in very good shape right now. Here is what it looked like before I gave it a quick cleanup. The French version of the article is a featured article and looks really well organized; it's something we might want to base our version off of. They have lots of information that we don't have, too, like the book's publisher and how much it cost to publish. I speak French so I can help translate some of the information from there, but I don't have that much time to dedicate to this so that's why I'm posting this here. Anyways, hopefully the article gets the attention it deserves! :) Gary King (talk) 04:00, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

Assessment needed

2008 G-20 Washington summit is need of an assessment. Can any body help here. Deavenger (talk) 23:07, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

Done Gary King (talk) 23:17, 13 December 2008 (UTC)
Thanks. Deavenger (talk) 23:25, 13 December 2008 (UTC)

reassessing importance

In the goal discussed here of having more proportional rankings of articles, I've been reassessing the importance of economics articles with a very free hand. I'm sure I will make some mistakes, so please don't hesitate to argue the point on any article you see mis-ranked.

I haven't been hitting the quality ratings yet. CRETOG8(t/c) 07:33, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Applied economics

I have just started a page on applied economics. I realise its content and style might be a bit problematic and it is over-reliant on Backhouse and Biddle but I think we needed a page on applied economics. More on econometrics might be desirable. Just thought we could try this for starters and see how it goes. (Msrasnw (talk) 00:14, 28 December 2008 (UTC))

Economic history

Economic history of the world should be expanded. It didn't even exist until I created it some week ago. Economic history is too short too. Jacob Lundberg (talk) 13:46, 4 January 2009 (UTC)

Memberlist statistics

MelonBot has compiled a set of statistics for this project's member list, which may be useful in future project collaborations. Check out the statistics and what they mean. Melon‑Bot (STOP!) 22:27, 5 January 2009 (UTC)

History of the Money Market

Could someone please write a history section for the article on money markets? It would be especially useful to discuss the development of banking and the money market in the late 17th and 18th centuries. Thanks! 213.202.130.118 (talk) 16:40, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

A new page on Business economics

I've done a new page on Business economics. (Msrasnw (talk) 18:55, 7 January 2009 (UTC))

Standardized procedure to promote 'A' Articles

We have very few 'A' articles, presumably because we have no standard procedure for promoting articles to 'A' status. I suggest we follow the lead of one of the larger wikiprojects on how to evaluate 'A' status candidates.

The procedure outlined by wikiproject Film seems pretty good: WP:FILMR#A-CLASS

As a start, I suggest we look at the economics articles that have formerly been featured articles, but have lost FA status. For example, Prisoner's dilemma and Mercantilism are still pretty good articles.

LK (talk) 15:46, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Do we have enough activity in this project to justify the creation of a new process? Gary King (talk) 15:52, 27 December 2008 (UTC)
I agree with Gary's implication that a stand-alone A-Class process is too much overhead for a project of our size. Then again, I see no real harm in trying. LK, if you're willing to put in the effort to set this up, I'm sure other participants will be willing to share their opinions on the quality of proposed A-class articles. My only suggestion is to avoid any overhead we can do without. -FrankTobia (talk) 18:39, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
I would rather we focus on getting a few articles to GA before moving forward with our own A-class assessment. Individual project assessments are usually only effective for large projects like WP:MILHIST, which is one of the few projects that I know of which have their own A-class assessment that actually "works". Gary King (talk) 18:42, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

How about something really simple, like:

  • If you think an article is 'A' class, post a notice to the WP:Econ discussion page and on the article talk page.
  • If after a week, there is at least one supporter from the the econ wikiproject, and no serious objections, then it has passed the review; upgrade the article to 'A' class.

LK (talk) 18:57, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

I think the problem with economics articles in particular is that a lot of them require experts. We certainly have the expertise among our members here, but they aren't always checking the project page. So, some articles might travel through A-class assessment when they get a Support and no one Opposes because something vital is missing in the article. Gary King (talk) 19:00, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
But if we have no procedure, then the alternative is to have no 'A' class articles at all, or to allow people to assign them without review. LK (talk) 19:05, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
I would prefer to not have any A-class at all for this project. We should only have them when they mean something; I don't think one Support really means much. Gary King (talk) 19:10, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
Alternative idea: if you think an article is A class, post a notice to the WP:Econ discussion page and on article talk page. There must be at least three active, knowledgable economics editors from the econ wikiproject that support the promotion (and no serious objections), and then it be upgraded to A class. This means that you have to get more support (of about half of the active editors in the WP:Econ project) before the article can be moved to A-class and will require more of a consensus from this project than just one editor's okay. Remember (talk) 19:26, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
Sounds better; hopefully this project doesn't get inundated with A-class assessment requests, just to have them end up not receiving any comments. That happens often at other places, even where there is more activity than this project, like WP:GAN (not the huge backlog), Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Peer review, etc. Gary King (talk) 19:57, 30 December 2008 (UTC)
I'm a fan of Remember's proposal, and also Gary's desire to push for more GAs. Does anyone want to try another sustained effort on getting Adam Smith to WP:GA? Hopefully we learned a thing or two from last time, and I'm naive enough to try again :-P -FrankTobia (talk) 22:38, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
I still plan on working on that article. I won't give up on it and keep working until it reaches FA. I've just got a few other articles to work on before I get started back there; but, it's always been on my to-do list since we first worked on it. Gary King (talk) 22:56, 31 December 2008 (UTC)
Me too, I know what you mean. I'm looking forward to when it's at the top of my To Do list, and when I have the time. -FrankTobia (talk) 22:45, 2 January 2009 (UTC)

So to summarize, to qualify for an A-rating an announcement proposing the promotion should be posted here, and at least three active editors from the Economics wikiproject should support the promotion, and there should be no serious objections from any other active wikiproject members. LK (talk) 15:38, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Help please

Would someone please take a look at Customer's Equity? Should it be redirected to Customer equity? If not, would someone who understands the subject matter please clean it up - it is very hard to understand. Thanks in advance. – ukexpat (talk) 15:57, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

I say redirect, unless we can find a source for the Customer's Equity. I couldn't find any source that uses that definition. The links are not related at all except for one that deals with customer equity. --Patrick (talk) 16:45, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
And according to this message on my user page appears to be original research. – ukexpat (talk) 22:47, 9 January 2009 (UTC)
I'll redirect this but feel free to start an AFD. --Patrick (talk) 20:14, 10 January 2009 (UTC)

Durvexity

I originally posted this on the WP:Business talk page, but it also falls into the area of economic theory so:

I was hoping that someone could look at the Durvexity article. I may well be wrong, but the word seems only to be in use on Wikipedia in the article itself, articles on Lehman Brothers and the financial crisis of 2008. Appearances outside Wikipedia are either Wikipedia mirrors or articles that quote Wikipedia articles. FlowerpotmaN·(t) 22:58, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

This article has now been tagged with {{expert}} and nominated for deletion; feedback from people knowledgable in economics would be welome. ¨¨ victor falk 07:37, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Wage slavery‎

Could a bunch of people pile into the wage slavery article... which is an economics and philosophy article .. and scrutinize what is happening currently there? It appears there is a rampant attack of single purpose what may be sock puppets, that are using the article as some kind of vehicle for Agitprop or Anarchist disinformation... or something.. I am not really sure... but what ever it is that is going on there is not right, and has thrown guidelines out the window. Massive pov to the point of hijacking any semblance of neutral presentation is occurring. This article needs more oversight and commentary right now. Give the lower area of the talk page a good look and please weigh in with opinions and suggestions and active editing. Thanks. skip sievert (talk) 02:49, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Template:Infobox Economist formatting

Hello. I've been reading some complaints that the Economist infobox is formatted a bit strangely. The "school_tradition" attribute is being highlighted with a colorful banner. See Joseph Stiglitz or Paul Krugman These banners are usually reserved for the person's name. This is a relatively minor cosmetic point, but would anyone mind if the Infobox looked more like Template:Infobox Scientist (see economists Roger Myerson or Edmund Phelps)? DavidRF (talk) 23:37, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

It is indeed a bit minor, but I do agree that it probably doesn't deserve such a prominent position in the infobox. It isn't exactly clear what the information there is intended to convey at first glance, as there is no label for it. Gary King (talk) 02:30, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
I prefer the phelps template. Mystache (talk) 18:28, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

Economic history of Europe

Some of you may be interested in the discussion here. Grunners (talk) 17:03, 9 February 2009 (UTC)

Minimum wage in the United States

Hello, this article is badly in need of updated information and expansion. Thanks, momoricks (make my day) 04:04, 10 February 2009 (UTC)

Neo-Capitalism

This whole article looks pretty strange Neo-Capitalism. It may all be sourced off a couple of blog/forums... it may be a neologism in context of what it is presenting... It seems to be the work of one person. I tagged it for a couple of things. Candidate for A.f.d.? It makes a whole series of claims that appear to be based on some non notable material. It would appear that the originator of this article is a single purpose editor in a conflict of interest...

NeoCapitalism.org is still the default installation but I have set up the workflow and functionality for it to behave as a Wiki and after Megan has left for the US, I'll get started with putting in all the book's theory as content so it can act as a user-editable theory portal. Then at least I'll have some basic stuff in place for both websites which will not just get me some web presence, but also act as examples of my skills which I can pitch if necessary to prospective employers. Hopefully this will earn some cash in the long run should worst come to worst. ... their webpage linked on user page http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/User:Ned14

This looks like a major conflict of interest from this user. It looks like the article is based on some kind of collaborative wiki... maybe http://www.nedprod.com/ This apparently is the creator of the article and its references from his user page. Someone can sort this out? Looks like maybe a quick article deletion? skip sievert (talk) 19:58, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

I've just done a quick google, and it appears that the term has been used at various times to mean various things; the uses don't agree with each other, and none of the uses are very notable. See this article, this paper, also here and here. I would AfD it as a non-notable neologism. LK (talk) 04:22, 13 February 2009 (UTC)
Possibly some of the various definitions should be collected and placed in the Wiktionary. —SlamDiego←T 05:55, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Marginal efficiency

I've requested an article on Marginal efficiency (per John Maynard Keynes) at Wikipedia:Requested articles/Business and economics. We have a page on Marginal concepts -- don't know what's relevant. Please create content and/or redirect as appropriate. Thanks. -- 201.37.230.43 (talk) 00:22, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

It looks like it's been done, and in record time! Gary King (talk) 02:34, 14 February 2009 (UTC)
It would be nice to find a “reliable source” to explain why this is identified as the marginal efficiency. Any good economist would recognize the reason, but one wants to avoid charges of “original research”, and edit wars between good economists and not-so-good economists. —SlamDiego←T 03:57, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject_Council/Proposals#Wikiproject Accounting

Is anyone interested in creating a wikiproject accounting?Smallman12q (talk) 14:36, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

For those who would find WikProject Oatmeal too exciting? —SlamDiego←T 18:01, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Budget advocacy

As far as I can tell, 'Budget advocacy' is entirely original research. If anyone cares to comment, please do so here. --Rinconsoleao (talk) 11:09, 25 February 2009 (UTC)

NB: The article has not been properly nominated for deletion. Comments should not be made at the above-linked “here” until a nomination has been made as per established protocol. —SlamDiego←T 15:06, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
I think it's now done according to protocol. Please let me know (or help) if I've done anything wrong. --Rinconsoleao (talk) 16:21, 25 February 2009 (UTC)
It looks as if the nomination is now in good order. —SlamDiego←T 01:02, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

crowding out

The crowding out article is terrible and incorrect. Like earlier stated, crowding out is a broad topic which is many times applied to the arguement of government spending. By reducing capital in the private sector, which is more efficient, it crowds out the private sector productive activities. Savings, investment, productivity and others are reduced. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.29.94.189 (talk) 04:46, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

I've just had a look at Crowding out, and our anonymous contributor is correct. The article is in sad shape. I've done a bit of cleanup, but it can certainly use more. LK (talk) 10:14, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Requesting help assessing Economics articles

Could some people please pitch in to assess new Economics articles? Right now, there are about 175 unassessed articles—which frankly is not a whole lot if a few people pitch in. They are found in the Category:Unassessed-Class, Unknown-importance Economics articles category. Gary King (talk) 19:49, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Sure, I'm start doing it tommorow. However, I'm not too good at deciding the importance, so I'll leave that.Deavenger (talk) 21:39, 26 February 2009 (UTC)
For those who are interested and editing on a PC, AWB works wonders for article assessment. the assessment plugin greatly simplifies the process. I don't have windows on this machine yet, or I would do it (I think I did the last backlog in about 1-1.5 hours, same number of articles). Protonk (talk) 22:25, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

Coordinators' working group

Hi! I'd like to draw your attention to the new WikiProject coordinators' working group, an effort to bring both official and unofficial WikiProject coordinators together so that the projects can more easily develop consensus and collaborate. This group has been created after discussion regarding possible changes to the A-Class review system, and that may be one of the first things discussed by interested coordinators.

All designated project coordinators are invited to join this working group. If your project hasn't formally designated any editors as coordinators, but you are someone who regularly deals with coordination tasks in the project, please feel free to join as well. — Delievered by §hepBot (Disable) on behalf of the WikiProject coordinators' working group at 05:19, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Gift economy

There has been a recent major edit (mostly removals) in gift economy. My personal view is that the article was much stronger before this edit than after, but since I was a major contributor to the previous content, I'm hardly in the position to be an even-handed judge. I'm posting here and in WikiProject Sociology, hoping to bring in some people not previously engaged in the article to perhaps help reach a consensus on whether these changes are good or bad. - Jmabel | Talk 00:58, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

Document stamp

Hi, folks!

A brief question - what would the official name be for the revenue stamps that are placed on documents in order to legalize them - eg. documents compliant with stamp duty in the UK; marriage certificates; official translations of legal documents, etc? A suggestion has been made that "documentary stamp" is used in the US, but is this also the case for the entire english-speaking world? please place your answers here, as this question has been asked in several wikiproject pages. Thank you! (the discussion that led to this question can be seen just above the link provided.) BigSteve (talk) 13:38, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

I am partial to the Financial crisis of 2007-2009 page but many other similar pages exist with slightly different focuses. What is the best way to get these articles working together so that a casual user can find all the information on the subject without missing anything because they failed to click on an article with a very similar name (which one might naturally assume had the same information). --Nihilozero (talk) 23:42, 7 March 2009 (UTC)

An infobox? Zain Ebrahim (talk) 23:45, 7 March 2009 (UTC)
Some editors are now looking at Global financial crisis of 2008–2009. See the talk page. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 10:12, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

Subprojects?

Project Economics is too large. Why not create subprojects on people, fields, concepts, journals, institutions, events? Richard Tol (talk) 08:18, 14 March 2009 (UTC)

On what basis do you claim that it is too large? I could easily see how it could become too large, but right now we don't see things such as this page (Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Economics) over-flowing with debate and discussion. —SlamDiego←T 08:55, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
The scope may be large, but the project is not. Meaning, we don't even have enough people for WikiProject Economics, let alone subprojects. Let's worry about getting more participation before we expand. Gary King (talk) 17:56, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
I think that you mean: let's expand before we bud. ;-) —SlamDiego←T 01:27, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

capital stock / market captialization

Are those the same or something completely different? I am doing a translation from Japanese here. In the infobox of the original article there is a value given for "capital stock" (translated from Japanese). In the infobox company I have the following items which I believe are somehow related to money: market capitalization, revenue, operating income, net income, AUM, total assets, total equity. Which of these is the same as "capital stock"? bamse (talk) 10:37, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Sounds like it might be the book value of the paid in capital plus retained earnings. This agrees with me. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 10:49, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
Thanks, so there is no such item in the infobox? bamse (talk) 10:54, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
Well, it could be total equity if that is referring to book value. Have you tried asking at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Companies - they may have come across this before. Zain Ebrahim (talk) 11:05, 5 March 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for the link, I left a message there. bamse (talk) 11:13, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Computable general equilibrium / Applied general equilibrium

We have articles for both Computable general equilibrium and Applied general equilibrium, which both kinda say they're the same as each other. Should these be merged? 87.115.166.150 (talk) 21:58, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Comment: There is or has been some sort of major difference of opinion between Horridge and Econfusion about whether “applied general equilibrium” and “computable general equilibrium” properly refer to the same thing. Econfusion holds that their proper referents are historically distinct, some borrowings by one from the other notwithstanding, and that what Horridge wishes to call “computable general equilibrium” is better called “applied general equilibrium”. (I am incompetent to judge this dispute.) Although one of the two articles does indeed “kinda say they're the same as each other”, the other argues that they are not. —SlamDiego←T 23:48, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

SlamDiego's Continued Vandalism of Marginalism Talk Page

Over on the Administrator's Noticeboard [1], I asked for somebody to say something to SlamDiego about his continued vandalism ([2], [3], [4], [5]) of the Talk:Marginalism page. 209.217.195.139 (talk) 23:44, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

I have repeatedly asked Robert to stop spamming econ talk pages with links to his 'blog. In the case of these 'blog entries, the relevant content could have been copied-and-pasted or paraphrased. He is simply trying to drive traffic to his 'blog.
The material in question at Talk:Marginalism is 'blog spam, discussion of 'blog spam, and a personal attack by a third party.
(The 'blog entry to which he links contains a short list of references in support of the notion that marginalism should be seen as a response to Marxism (which notion was long previously discussed by the article).)
I think that Robert's 'blog needs to be added to the list of sites to which links need to be banned, to put an end to his search engine optimization. —SlamDiego←T 00:27, 17 April 2009 (UTC)
FWIW, the result of Robert's complaint and of my reply is that he has been administratively warned against future spamming. —SlamDiego←T 20:10, 17 April 2009 (UTC)

Inflation

A couple of editors interested in physics have unilaterally moved Inflation, first to Price inflation and then to Inflation (financial). I think this is unsatisfactory, both in terms of outcome and process. Discussion at the talk page.JQ (talk) 21:28, 28 March 2009 (UTC)

A more neutral way of saying that would be: "There is discussion on-going at talk: Inflation regarding a renaming of the article. The issues involve the existence of other types of inflation (especially Cosmic inflation) as well as other types of inflation in economics, such as monetary inflation." NJGW (talk) 17:21, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
That would have been a more neutral way of saying things, if it were correct. As I mentioned, the name change was made unilaterally, before the discussion, which reached the conclusion that no such change was needed. At the time I posted, the change was not going on at talk: Inflation, since that had been converted to a disambiguation page. JQ (talk) 19:32, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

After much ado this has finally been resolved. Inflation occupies the main namespace, with hatnote disambiguation links to Inflation (cosmology) and Inflation (disambiguation). Inflation theory and Inflationary theory are phrases more commonly used in physics, and so redirect to Inflation (cosmology), however, Inflation (cosmology) must also keep hatnote disambiguation links back to Inflation (an increase in prices) and Inflation (disambiguation). LK (talk) 06:03, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Fascist economics

Wikipedia:WikiProject Fascism needs some help with articles about fascist economic theory and practise. The main article on the topic is Economics of Fascism. Please could someone from this project improve that article, or offer some advice on it? Some other articles on the topic: Class collaboration, Corporatism, Heroic capitalism, State capitalism, State socialism, Supercapitalism (concept in Italian Fascism), and Third Position. Thank you for any help you can provide. Ecto (talk) 16:54, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Transfer payments multiplier

I declined the speedy deletion on this one, added your project tag, and cleaned it up a bit. Anyone who's interested in articles that enter or leave one of the deletion processes should keep an eye on your project's WP:Article alerts page. - Dank (push to talk) 15:44, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

Anyone have any idea about how to sign up for our project's WP:Article alerts page? LK (talk) 08:40, 11 May 2009 (UTC)
You're already signed up; see Wikipedia:WikiProject_Economics#Article alerts for your bot-updated list. - Dank (push to talk) 14:59, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

Key figures in

I've just noticed in the Behavioral economics article, sections Behavioral_economics#Key_figures_in_behavioral_economics and Behavioral_economics#Key_scholars_in_behavioral_finance. I'm not sure about how appropriate such sections are. I do think they're quite an attraction for problems, since it's tricky to have clear guidelines for what makes someone a "key figure".

My feeling is that anyone who's a key figure should get mention (or at least their work should get a mention) in the article itself, which would be better because it will have context besides just a link. And then those sections could be removed. Other thoughts? CRETOG8(t/c) 23:51, 11 May 2009 (UTC)

I'm sure that it would be better to have mention of ostensible key figures integrated into the text, in a way that makes clear the nature of their significance. My question is of whether it is better to keep maintain lists as, in effect, stub mentions. —SlamDiego←T 00:07, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
Who decides who is a key figure? This list has led to all sorts of spamming. I think it is better left off. If a person has done major work in behavioral economics, it will be mentioned in the article.Sposer (talk) 14:19, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
The standards of “notability” would of course have to apply (and pehaps more, for the figure to be held to be key). But There could be consensus amongst editors on the talk page that a figure was notable before such time as a discussion had been integrated into the text. It may be that, in practice, having a list in the article will not work well, and that there should just be a to-do list on the talk page. But I don't think that having a list in the article can be ruled-out a priori. —SlamDiego←T 17:52, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
I think the notability guidelines are for having an article on that particular person or subject. A person doesn't necessarily need to meet such a standard to be used for example as an attribution for an opinion, so long as the opinion itself is due weight. It seems to me that the body of the text would present areas for opinion that could be attributed to key individuals. I don't think the list should be there and would suggest moving the list to the talk page, giving editors time to take those names and integrate them into the article. Morphh (talk) 19:11, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
Well, the figures in question aren't simply being presented as notable, but as key (as if developments would have been significantly different had no one made the contributions that they made), which argues that they should indeed be sufficiently “notable” for their own articles, and perhaps then-some. —SlamDiego←T 12:28, 13 May 2009 (UTC)
I think key figure sections are perfectly reasonable for articles starting along the editing arc. We would prefer that they be integrated into the text or contextualized against different views of the discipline, but if I had to choose between a "key figures" section and no "key figures" section, I would prefer the content stayed in. I think that editorial discretion and demand for sources that say "XYZ person is a key figure" will help keep these lists short. I can't imagine more than 2 dozen entries on a list like that. Protonk (talk) 20:13, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

History of economic thought

This article is being restructured and debated as to formatting the content and content direction. Right now the article is pretty good and getting better and any interested parties might want to come and participate or get involved with suggestions History of economic thought - skip sievert (talk) 15:14, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

Australian economists

Anyone here interested in expanding and creating articles on Australian economists? Richard Charles Mills and J. G. Phillips (which I've been tidying after noticing it in a poor state). Carcharoth (talk) 22:47, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

New tactic by sock puppeteer Karmaisking

Just a heads-up, our friendly neighborhood sock puppeteer User:Karmaisking has recently developed a new tactic, where he inserts edits with one account, then claims to revert it with another account to try and camouflage the insertion. See for example this edit and this edit by two new KiK socks, where he claims to revert his other socks' edit, but actually doesn't. KiK apparently has a lot of time on his hands, as he even goes so far as to actually revert a host of sock insertions, to hide a non-revert labeled as a revert somewhere in there. Since KiK usually creates puppets in droves, it's probably best to revert to the last good version when you see suspicious behavior typical of KiK. LK (talk) 13:49, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Single deposit

Hiya. This was a borderline WP:CSD#A1 because I can't tell what the article is about ... simple deposit? single deposit? I've also got a vague memory that there was a spammer who used this phrase. Anywho, I've added your project tag, prodded, and I'm just passing this along. Btw, while I'm here, note that you can get notice of proposed deletions through WP:Article alerts, which show up on your project page under (wait for it) Proposed deletion. - Dank (push to talk) 17:07, 16 May 2009 (UTC)

Net Capital Outflow page riddled with errors - needs DRASTIC change

Hopefully this is the right place to post this, but I wanted to inform someone that Wikipedia's Net Capital Outflow page is egregiously incorrect. And when I say "incorrect" I don't mean "controversial," I don't mean, "debatable," I mean that it is a confusing, and often 100% false article. Even the images (the graphs) are ludicrously wrong, I'm curious where they were even taken from. I'm not sure what the policy is for this type of thing, but at the very least there should be a warning on the page to say that this information may be incorrect, or isn't probably cited or whatever. I don't think a single word in this article is salvageable (except perhaps the very last paragraph/sentence, although even that should be rewritten because it is absurdly confusing and overcomplicated), it should ideally be entirely rewritten. I would do it myself, but I recognize that I don't have the expertise to rewrite this.

But as it stands right now, in terms of educating the public, the existence of this article does more harm than good. Until someone is up to the task of rewriting it, I think it would be best for this article to be deleted entirely. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.252.203.21 (talk) 21:46, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Looks basically correct to me. A bit technical, and a minor error on the intro (fixed), but basically correct. LK (talk) 23:50, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

GA Sweeps invitation

This message is being sent to WikiProjects with GAs under their scope. Since August 2007, WikiProject Good Articles has been participating in GA sweeps. The process helps to ensure that articles that have passed a nomination before that date meet the GA criteria. After nearly two years, the running total has just passed the 50% mark. In order to expediate the reviewing, several changes have been made to the process. A new worklist has been created, detailing which articles are left to review. Instead of reviewing by topic, editors can consider picking and choosing whichever articles they are interested in.

We are always looking for new members to assist with reviewing the remaining articles, and since this project has GAs under its scope, it would be beneficial if any of its members could review a few articles (perhaps your project's articles). Your project's members are likely to be more knowledgeable about your topic GAs then an outside reviewer. As a result, reviewing your project's articles would improve the quality of the review in ensuring that the article meets your project's concerns on sourcing, content, and guidelines. However, members can also review any other article in the worklist to ensure it meets the GA criteria.

If any members are interested, please visit the GA sweeps page for further details and instructions in initiating a review. If you'd like to join the process, please add your name to the running total page. In addition, for every member that reviews 100 articles from the worklist or has a significant impact on the process, s/he will get an award when they reach that threshold. With ~1,300 articles left to review, we would appreciate any editors that could contribute in helping to uphold the quality of GAs. If you have any questions about the process, reviewing, or need help with a particular article, please contact me or OhanaUnited and we'll be happy to help. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 06:27, 20 May 2009 (UTC)

References

An editor User:Smallman12q has inserted large numbers of citations for standard terms to a textbook (w/o page numbers) as follows

  • Sullivan, arthur (2003). Economics: Principles in action. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458: Pearson Prentice Hall. p. 79. ISBN 0-13-063085-3. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: location (link)

Obviously, this is a good faith attempt to improve the article, but I don't find the result very helpful. My feeling is that we would be better off either including page numbers or doing without a reference. I'm also concerned about citing a single, fairly obscure text so much, but I don't have a good alternative. Any thoughts?JQ (talk) 11:27, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

I also have found the repeated insertions of the same reference text without page numbers a bit problematic. I think it's good faith, and we just need to talk with him, and ask for him to slow down and add page numbers. (And perhaps send him a copy of Mankiw's Principles of Economics.) LK (talk) 11:41, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
Most of those articles that I added that reference do have page numbers. It was when I first seriously participated in wikipedia so I wasn't fully aware of all the policies, guidelines, and whatnot, but I did take these actions in good faith.Smallman12q (talk) 21:32, 22 May 2009 (UTC)
Maybe you could go back and add page numbers to the references and remove those where there is no good cite in the book. Otherwise I think we will have to remove those that lack page numbers. JQ (talk) 20:29, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Adam Smith GA?

I've looked over the Adam Smith article. Does anybody else think it's ready to try and go for a GA class article. Deavenger (talk) 17:15, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

I was thinking the same thing, but I am wary from our last attempt. I'm willing to give it another go conditional on a few editors making the same commitment. -FrankTobia (talk) 23:00, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Deflation

The Deflation article has been tagged for cleanup since 2006. Can someone take a look at it and make some comments on the talk page about what it needs? Thank you. RJFJR (talk) 16:36, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Talk:Economic surplus

Please see Talk:Economic surplus. Apparently, there are lots of university lecture notes that conflate the notions of producer's surplus and economic profit and consequently state that perfect competition drives producer's surplus to zero. I'm following David D. Friedman (Price Theory, Hidden Order), which clearly argues that producer's surplus should be imputed as a cost to the perfectly-competitive firm, but it would be good to find some more sources on this issue. --Classicalecon (talk) 16:00, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Faulty assumptions

This page needs to engage with critiques of the ontological and epistemological presuppositions of experimental economics. For example, experimental economics takes as given--as 'natural'--a particular understanding of individual behavior that should instead be regarded as constructed, or at least, historically contingent. Why should one believe in (take as given) the behavioral assumptions attributed to human individuals by experimental economics instead of regarding them as constructed and/or amplified or reinforced by the particular historically contingent contexts and institutions within which the individual is located? Using experimentation to verify presupposition doesn't prove that the essence of individual economic agents coheres to the presuppositions held by the experimenter. There is an element of circularity here. The institutional context within which individual economic agents exist shapes individual behavior. This behavior cannot be assumed to represent the essence of individuals (homo economicus) without rigorous comparison across varying (historical and cultural) institutional contexts across space and time. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.186.245.142 (talk) 07:46, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia is simply not a place for the active reform of economics. There are, meanwhile, various fora for the sort of discourse that you propose. —SlamDiego←T 07:53, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Portal:Statistics is being considered for featured quality status, at the Featured portal candidates process. Comments would be appreciated at Wikipedia:Featured portal candidates/Portal:Statistics. —G716 <T·C> 01:30, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Template:WikiProject Economics — Comments

What is the proper function (distinct from that of the Talk: page) of the /Comments page of which Template:WikiProject Economics invites creation for each tagged page? —SlamDiego←T 12:38, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

I note that the template was changed to invited such separate comments with an edit of 01:23, 28 April 2009, by Funandtrvl. Beyond an edit summary of “add parameters that project uses”, there seems to have been no discussion. —SlamDiego←T 12:50, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for bringing this up. I think we should ditch that--it seems to encourage a duplicate discussion page which will only cause confusion. 14:50, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
Since there's been no further comment, I'm going to disable that feature. I ask that editors aware of /Comments subpage to econ articles to please move their contents to the principal Talk: pages of the articles. —SlamDiego←T 04:44, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
It appears that I am mistaken as to what effected the earlier change. I wasn't able to disable the feature by editing Template:WikiProject Economics. There's something up-stream causing this feature. Later, I'll see if there is an option that will allow the feature to be disabled without edit to the up-stream object. (I'm frying other fish now.) —SlamDiego←T 04:59, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
I edited the template and removed two lines related to the comments feature (COMMENTS=yes and COMMENTS_FORCE=yes). This change is not immediately visible on article talk pages. Either, wait a while until the wikipedia servers caches are purged (may take a day or two), or make a "null edit" on the article talk page. A null edit is an edit that makes no actual change to the content of the page. I did this to Talk:Austrian School - you'll notice that the comments section no longer exists. This process has not deleted Talk:Austrian_School/Comments - just no longer has a link from inside the banner. Hope this helps —G716 <T·C> 05:48, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
There is a list of WikiProject Economics article talk pages with Comments subpages here —G716 <T·C> 06:02, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
TNX much. —SlamDiego←T 06:23, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
Thanks! That was confusing for me, also. CRETOG8(t/c) 15:18, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

There is no reference for Mankiws "Economics" in the page for Principle of Monetary Neutrality

And as part of it is literally copied from the book, i suggest adding the book as a reference.

thankyo

june 11 2009 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 200.104.15.27 (talk) 17:40, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Do you mean the Neutrality of money article? Can you identify the part which is copied from Mankiw? Even if it's referenced, stuff shouldn't be copied directly from the book. CRETOG8(t/c) 19:36, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

New article

Lucas Welfare Cost of Fluctuations. Right now still a work in progress, though once I add in extensions, criticisms and inline cites I'm gonna put it up for DYK (Wiki does not feature nearly enough technical articles). In the meantime, any input is much appreciated.radek (talk) 01:37, 12 June 2009 (UTC)

Economics sidebar

There is some discussion and disagreement regarding changes to the Economics sidebar template. Please voice your thoughts on the proposal to remove drop-down menu so we can gather a consensus on the matter. Thanks Morphh (talk) 12:32, 13 June 2009 (UTC)

Rating requested for Wage slavery

An editor has requested that the article wage slavery be assesed for quality and importance. I would do it, but I'm too involved. Could someone take a gander and post a rating? Thanks LK (talk) 05:26, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

This article looks really good. With some more polishing I think it could be a strong candidate for WP:GA or WP:FAC. One thing that did jump out at me is an over-use of direct quotations. A few are good, but in general a direct quote should be paraphrased and cited.
And I just noticed it's already been rated. Well, I was planning on rating it the same anyway :) -FrankTobia (talk) 15:16, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Francis Amasa Walker

I have completed a major re-write of Francis Amasa Walker and am soliciting other editors' input, edits, and corrections to the article. Madcoverboy (talk) 17:03, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Minimum wage

A much narrower dispute at Minimum wage about the weight that should be put on a literature summary by Neumark and Wascher. Some additional views might help achieve a resolution. (You can see my view on the talk page, but I won't canvass it here). JQ (talk) 08:09, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Wage slavery

Wage slavery is desperately in need of help. There are some WP:OWNership issues as well, but I think that if the article is improved the problem will largely go away.

CRGreathouse (t | c) 23:09, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure if it'll be a good use of our time and energies. It looks like it would take a sustained effort, along the lines of the tussle over the inflation article we went through late last year to bring that article in line with the mainstream understanding of inflation. Unfortunately, we have more important articles that still need fixing. LK (talk) 08:44, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
True enough. CRGreathouse (t | c) 12:48, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
That does not seem like a good rationale for letting someone (99.2.224.110) turn the article into a personal blogging site. skip sievert (talk) 16:25, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Actually, since CRGreathouse, Skipsievert, Visionthing and IP:99.2.224.110 are actively editing it, now might be a good time to have a look and work at bringing it up to snuff. LK (talk) 09:19, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

some article importance changes

One or more IP editors have recently been changing the ratings of various articles, mostly focusing on increasing the importance of the Austrian school article to "Top", but also things like Mises and Keynes articles (which might both be rated too high as bios, but that's a different matter). I figured I'd give the heads-up here, and point discussion this way when I make reversions. CRETOG8(t/c) 00:22, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Plainly, the editors in question think that they are accomplishing something quite other than what they are. —SlamDiego←T 01:28, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
That does not appear all that plainly. Could you elaborate S. D.? Also this was not presented correctly by Cretog. Others also made the change besides I.P's. Reality seems to be that one or two people make the ratings. Austrian and Keynes stuff is very basic... and as such top importance. Both are nearly the same except for incidentals. skip sievert (talk) 02:29, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
The “importance” ratings in question aren't there to steer readers; they are there to steer editors from this project and from a philosophy project. The effect of rating v Mises “top” isn't to hurtle readers to it, nor even competent editors. (The competent editors already have an idea of the importance of the Austrian School.) Nor is someone going to see the “low” rating assigned by that editor to Keynes and think “Goodness! I must immediately not read this article about this low-rated fellow Keynes!” —SlamDiego←T 03:00, 4 July 2009 (UTC)
Thanks for illuminating. Very interesting & creatively explained. Gracia. skip sievert (talk) 03:33, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Vote

Since edit waring continues on this issue. Let's have a vote to make it clear to everyone what consensus is here at the Econ Wikiproject. LK (talk) 03:49, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

  • Comment: The only legitimate function of these ratings would be to direct editors' efforts, and they have no such effect in the case of these particular articles. Thus, what we'll get here is mostly just a sneering war. —SlamDiego←T 04:59, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
    • Whats the alternative, let drive by IPs set the ratings for our wikiproject headers? LK (talk) 07:02, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
      • Since [A] that's pretty much what they can do to the rest of each article and to its talk page, [B] they'll still be able to reset the “importance” ratings after a vote, and [C] a sneering war isn't going to help, I'd say that we could have forgone the sneering. —SlamDiego←T 07:35, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
    • I would like to note, that this has been an exceedingly polite and productive discussion, and that the only occurrence of sneering so far has been in the above comments. LK (talk) 14:56, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
Importance rating for Austrian school
  • Mid - One of several heterodox schools. LK (talk) 03:49, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
  • High – One of the three founding schools of the Marginal Revolution. A significant and recurring influence on the mainstream of economic theory at least into the early '90s (notwithstanding that the work being incorporated had been done decades earlier). Still invoked by liberal and conservative policy makers and politicians. Still having a significant popular following. —SlamDiego←T 04:59, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
  • Mid - Schools of economic thought aren't particularly important for an encyclopedia, specific ideas are. Austrian school is arguably less important than some other schools of thought, and few would rise to High. CRETOG8(t/c) 06:23, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
  • Mid - Maybe about to become High, given the eclipse of the mainstream free-market school in the light of the GFC, but Wikipedia is not a crystal ball.JQ (talk) 07:54, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
  • High: Not my interest, but it's a major heterodox school with a fair following. It still influences mainstream economics (more than can be said of most heterodox schools of thought). CRGreathouse (t | c) 16:20, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
  • High: Hard to even call it heterodox as it is so close to what passes for mainstream. Not my interest either, but makes for intense reading, and really interesting critical analysis. skip sievert (talk) 04:11, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
  • High - a heterodox school that was a part of the mainstream and that had a major influence on its development. -- Vision Thing -- 11:22, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
  • Mid - One heterodox school among many, which is not vital to an elementary economics education. -FrankTobia (talk) 11:40, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
  • High: A school of economics that once made very influential contributions, and is now one of the most widespread heterodox schools. --Rinconsoleao (talk) 13:22, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
Importance rating for Keynes
Importance rating for Mises

Close this thread following WP:VOTE (Wikipedia decisions aren't made by popular vote) and delete the ratings boxes as unsourced original research and soapboxing which mislead both the readers and editors who seem them. Gwen Gale (talk) 10:29, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Just wanted to be clear that this is just a priority for the wikiproject and does not reflect the "importance" of the article itself. In fact, many wikiprojects have renamed that label to make that point clearer. We also have a scale to guide this section for the project. In any event, I've found the priorities are pretty much meaningless as people will work on whatever articles they want to work on and rarely guide the efforts of the wikiproject. Morphh (talk) 11:56, 06 July 2009 (UTC)
I agree they're meaningless, they're also misleading, flawed and wholly unsourced. Hence, they should be removed. Likewise with other projects. The scale rankings are also worrisome, misleading and more or less unsupportable, but not as harmful as the importance rankings. Gwen Gale (talk) 12:53, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
I'm not sure they can really be too flawed or unsourced, as they only reflect our priority as a group to work on them (and we rarely come together as a group to improve articles - I think Adam Smith was the last one). They become somewhat helpful as wikiprojects get larger and article drives are pushed (WikiProject Biography for example). The scale rankings are not project specific, but reflect the article standards of Wikipedia as a whole. I do agree that the "importance" title can be misleading. If others think it's worth it, it would be easy enough to rename it to priority, which better reflects the meaning with regard to the project but even that can be confusing (and not sure it's worth the effort for something we don't use). Morphh (talk) 13:11, 06 July 2009 (UTC)
As well as renaming these “importance” ratings, they could be moved from infoboxes on Talk pages to someplace such as Wikipedia:WikiProject Economics/Priorities. That way, they would have less potential to mislead readers, and less value for those who want to use them to sneer. (I think that, no matter where placed, they will never have much practical utility, that few editors will ever be steered by them, though some cliques may use them to uselessly restate mutually agreed projects.) —SlamDiego←T 14:48, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
Spot on what I was about to say. Put them on their own project pages then, where only the very few editors who care about them know where to find them. Gwen Gale (talk) 15:30, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) I agree that they should be renamed to something less misleading (like wikiproject priority?), but we shouldn't get rid of them, I regularly go through the 'top' & 'high' importance articles with 'stub' or 'start' ratings to see if I can quickly bring them up to snuff. It's the first thing I do whenever I have extra time (not so much lately). LK (talk) 15:44, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Those are the "quality" rankings. Although they're often wrong, they're much less harmful. This "vote" was meant to be about the unsourced "importance" rankings, which I do think should be gotten rid of altogether, but which would cause little harm on their own project pages, away from the articles. Gwen Gale (talk) 15:48, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
I do think that the ratings are important; I use them to decide which articles to work on when I'm looking to break out of the articles that I frequently edit. But of course they are easily misconstrued; I don't have a good solution for that. Perhaps just hiding the display? CRGreathouse (t | c) 15:56, 6 July 2009 (UTC)
That's a good idea. Anyone here know how to do template work, know how to tweak it so that by default it doesn't display 'importance'? Quality should still display as that tells the reader how reliable the information is.
Also, Gwen, we need both quality and importance rankings in order to know how to direct our energies. If you really think importance shouldn't exist, perhaps you could bring it up at the wikiprojects page, instead of here. That seems like a more relevant place to pursue that issue. LK (talk) 03:31, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
Please keep in mind, I didn't start this thread but rather, said I thought it should be closed. Also, editors can remove templates like these from any talk page if there is a consensus to do so. Gwen Gale (talk) 11:12, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

(outdent) I created a sandbox for the template and change the scale to priority. It would continue to work if the parameter was defined as "importance", but would display it as priority. We would have to create the new categories, but I think all the articles would automatically move over. Morphh (talk) 12:36, 07 July 2009 (UTC)

Thanks Morph. As usual, great work! LK (talk) 13:50, 8 July 2009 (UTC)
Would it be possible to hide the priority box by default? So that people don't get worked up and start edit warring over it? thanks LK (talk) 09:24, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
I'll see what we can do. Since we use the {{WPBannerMeta}}, our customization options are limited. Morphh (talk) 12:22, 09 July 2009 (UTC)
Ok, I have some direction on this but need some clarification. Are you saying to hide it if it does not have a priority assigned or if it does have a priority assigned, or both. Part of the reason for displaying it is to have people assign a priority if none exists, so we have to consider that hiding it in that case would reduce the activity of assessing the article. Morphh (talk) 12:54, 09 July 2009 (UTC)
On the assumption that these ratings are to be kept at all, the most important thing is that assigned priorities are not displayed on article Talk pages. Further, it should be easy to implement a default value of “unrated”, so that unassigned priorities are also not displayed on article Talk pages, but there will be a centralized listing of “unrated” articles. —SlamDiego←T 13:14, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
There are unassigned values for both class and priority and there is a centralized listing at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Economics#Statistics. I don't agree with removing them from talk pages. This is a standard practice across WikiProjects and defined by the WikiProject Council, which I think we should follow. Morphh (talk) 14:04, 09 July 2009 (UTC)

Renaming it 'priority' is a great idea, but I think it should be visible, so that it can guide as many potential editors as possible, not only those who know how to search for it. Edit wars are rarely a big problem. --Rinconsoleao (talk) 13:30, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Since the WikiProject Council has issued guidance on this, we should keep it visible (although renamed as priority). To reduce edit warring, let's have internal econ wikiproject policy that the rating should in general only be made by econ wikiproject members, and if we see edit warring, we should revert to ratings made by wikiproject members. If two or more wikiproject members disagree, and cannot come to an agreement, and they feel it is important enough an issue, then it should be brought to this talk page for resolution. LK (talk) 14:53, 9 July 2009 (UTC)
Ok, I've made the changes to set it to Priority (instead of Importance). I've created the new categories and articles should automatically update to reflect the changes. We might have to wait until tomorrow before the statistics table is updated by the bot, unless someone wants to kick it off manually. Morphh (talk) 18:05, 09 July 2009 (UTC)
Update, I'm still working on this... There are a lot of sub-categories to create as we use the quality / importance intersect, which creates sub-category classifications like Category:GA-Class, High-priority Economics articles. However, we're having an issue with the bot or something, the articles show the correct priority category, but is not reflected when you actually go to the categories. So, I'm trying to figure that out. Also, the statistics are not updating on the main chart. I believe this is because the bot looks for an importance categories first, which is empty, and does not look any further. I believe that once the importance categories are deleted, the bot will see no importance category and look for priority, which contains all our articles. I tried to do a speedy delete on those old categories but since we still have the old sub-categories mentioned above, it sees it as not empty. So, hopefully I can get all those sub-cats strait, then delete the main cats, so that all will work in wiki-harmony. :-) Morphh (talk) 12:58, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Stigmatized Property

Linked in from an article about some movie. Pretty sure that the article was spookier than the flick. the article was replete with 'woo-woo' and legal inaccuracies. IANAL, nor am I an economist, so I'm afraid I was working blind in a number of ways. I find the legal concept very interesting, having occasionally spotted a news article over the years (usually in the 'would you believe these yokels?' section. feel free to improve on my work - in my opinion the original article simply took an extremely shaky premise and ran with it as gospel. regnad kcin75 7/11/09 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Regnad kcin75 (talk • contribs) 03:46, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Link: Stigmatized property CRETOG8(t/c) 03:51, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Project categories need work

See Category:List-Class Economics articles, you got some with "priority", some with "importance". You also got some pretty full wanted categories like Category:Unassessed-Class, Unknown-priority Economics articles. A lot can probably be fixed just editing the template. Rocket000 (talk) 05:38, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Oh yeah, and the stats box gives all 0s. Rocket000 (talk) 05:39, 12 July 2009 (UTC)
Thanks. The fellow principally wrestling with these issues is aware of the problems, which are largely an artefact of an on-going conversion process and of his attempts to improve functionality. —SlamDiego←T 06:35, 12 July 2009 (UTC)
I believe I've created all the new categories now, and have marked the others for deletion... so hopefully everything will be updated in the next day or so. Morphh (talk) 21:37, 12 July 2009 (UTC)
Ok, I think everything should be working correctly now. Let me know if you see any additional issues. Morphh (talk) 13:58, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Disagreement over lead in History of Economic Thought

Skip and I are having a disagreement over the lead at History of economic thought, would appreciate some comments on the issue on the talk page. Thanks, LK (talk) 15:39, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Macmillan Committee

Could someone please take a look at this article? I'm not an economist and need a sanity check. Strikehold (talk) 21:44, 26 July 2009 (UTC)

Could you clarify your problems with it? I gave it a quick read through, and it seems fine. NPV and very well cited. LK (talk) 01:45, 27 July 2009 (UTC)
I didn't have any specific problems, I just wanted to make sure I didn't include any glaring errors or omissions. Thanks for the help. Strikehold (talk) 02:02, 27 July 2009 (UTC)
I just noticed that you wrote the article single-handedly. Nice work! LK (talk) 05:22, 27 July 2009 (UTC)
Thank you, and thanks again for giving it a look over. Strikehold (talk) 20:04, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Biflation

I don't see an AfD section here but you may be interested in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Biflation. Ben MacDui 15:23, 1 August 2009 (UTC)

Check Money burning

Hello, I've just started a new article, Money burning. I'd like to get it on WP:DYK in the next few days. Before that happens, could someone knowledgeable please check it out and make sure it isn't completely wrong? Also a section on game theory would be nice. Thanks, Melchoir (talk) 01:54, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

WP:SYNTH. —SlamDiego←T 02:17, 2 August 2009 (UTC)
Urg. I don't want to agree with SlamDiego on this one, but I lean towards thinking they're correct. I like the beginnings of the article, though, so I'm very willing to be talked into changing my mind. CRETOG8(t/c) 03:19, 2 August 2009 (UTC)
Where exactly do you see the problem? Melchoir (talk) 03:29, 2 August 2009 (UTC)
You article is likely to not be inaccurate per se. But, it appears to be poorly sourced. The sources don't fully back up much of what you state in the article. If you put forward a view or argument that has not already been put forward in a reliable source, that constitutes original research or synthesis (WP:OR, WP:SYN). OTOH, policy is that if the statement is not contentious, it doesn't need a source, so I'm inclined to think that the article is 'ok' as it stands.

I thank everyone for commenting, and I appreciate your enthusiasm, but this discussion to date has not been constructive. Let me assure you that I am familiar with content policy, and giving me WP links is a waste of time. Neither did I come here for an opinion poll. What I lack is a broad view of economics. Tell me which statements you are concerned about. Quote them here if you like. Better yet, use the article talk page. Feel free to apply {{citation needed}} if that helps you. As it is, I don't even know which sections you are looking at. Melchoir (talk) 05:05, 2 August 2009 (UTC)

Fixed some things in the article. Hope this helps. LK (talk) 06:53, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
It does, thanks! Melchoir (talk) 08:25, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

Paul Krugman

Things are getting quite heated over at the Paul Krugman page. If you have time, it might be worthwhile dropping by the talk page. Thanks, LK (talk) 06:53, 4 August 2009 (UTC)
To clarify, I think there are some BLP violations going on there. More eyes would be helpful. Thanks, LK (talk) 15:00, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

To clarify further, the specific issue of relevance to WP Economics is whether Krugman, in the opening sentence of his entry, should be described as a "liberal economist, columnist, author" or as a "Keynesian economist, liberal columnist and author". Comments at Talk:Paul Krugman#Liberal economics please. Rd232 talk 19:42, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
I have reversed the following edits by Vision Thing:
"Pulitzer prize-winning historian David M. Kennedy stated, "Like the rants of Rush Limbaugh or the films of Michael Moore, Krugman’s shrill polemic may hearten the faithful, but it will do little to persuade the unconvinced".[1][6] 01:15 1 September, 2009
According to The Economist, in 2003 Krugman was ranked as the second most partisan American political columnist, behind only Ann Coulter. The Economist concluded that Krugman gives lay readers the illusion that his personal political beliefs can somehow be derived empirically from economic theory.The Economist, Face Value: Paul Krugman, one-handed economist
Krugman, Paul (2006-11-30). "Paul Krugman on the Great Wealth Transfer". Rolling Stone. rollingstone.com. Retrieved 2009-08-01. {{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |1= (help)</ref>[2] As the main instrument for improving the economy Krugman advocated promotion of spending on housing and other durable goods with low interest rates. Among other measures he proposed were increased government spending on infrastructure, military operations, unemployment benefits, and income subsidies for lower-income families. He argued that these policies would have a larger impact in promoting economic recovery, and would only temporarily increase the budget deficit.[3] He has also criticized Alan Greenspan for supporting the Bush tax cuts, when, according to Krugman, Greenspan was "constantly lecturing politicians on the importance of eliminating deficits and paying off debt" during the Clinton presidency.[4][7] 20:03, 4 August 2009
In both cases, the text written by Vision Thing was a distortion of the source, and the sources given were not appropriate for the article. Vision Thing has shown a consistent pattern of disruptive editing on this article which has wasted time for many contributors. His edits are extremely biased and he obviously does not understand WP:NPOV. Furthermore, he shows an obvious lack of understanding of the subject matter of this article.
The Four Deuces (talk) 00:24, 2 September 2009 (UTC)

Deleting Pie method

Dmcq (talk · contribs) writes:

I've put a prod on Pie method which is a putative method of fair division because I believe it is simply wrong. I actually found a place on the internet though where somebody quoted it though not as the 'pie method' and it probably didn't come from wikipedia! I sort of wonder if it is notably wrong and I should keep it and say it is rubbish? Perhaps I should put it under Proportional (fair division) as an attempt which is wrong and explain - but then the explanation could be counted as WP:OR. Dmcq (talk) 23:34, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

I thought this may be interesting to members of this WikiProject. CRGreathouse (t | c) 23:45, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

I just glanced at the article, and cannot vouch for its particulars. But the method itself can certainly be supported on game theoretic grounds. Under standard assumptions of preference, the person effecting the division maximizes his expected well-being by effecting an equal division. (It gets more complicated if the first person both places a premium on the satisfaction of the other party, and expects that other party not to put a premium on the well-being of the divider.) And this method is well established in folk lore and wisdom. —SlamDiego←T 04:55, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
Are you talking about the two-person case? That's covered at Divide and choose. CRGreathouse (t | c) 05:25, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
I see now that “Pie method” begins talking about the two-person case, and then attempts to extend it. If the two-person case is well covered at “Divide and choose”, then I say, by all means, just turn “Pie method” into a redirect. If there's an appropriately documented way to extend the method to more persons, that should be added at “Divide and choose”. —SlamDiego←T 05:33, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
Setting aside the issue of “reliable sources” just for the sake of discussion here, what problem do you have with the extension? On the assumption of mutual disinterest, &c, the first divider again maximizes his expected share by excising 1/n of the total, where n is the number of participants. —SlamDiego←T 05:40, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
The method is vulnerable to parties with nonzero knowledge of others' preferences, to collusion, to imperfect cuts, to externalities, and most every other flaw you could find. Aside from the issues of WP:RS and WP:OR, of course.
Have you heard this name for the procedure in question (2-person or otherwise)? I'm wondering if it's a good redirect or not.
CRGreathouse (t | c) 05:54, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
Almost all of these objections are addressed by very conventional assumptions. Granted that either the assumptions should be explicitly stated or the reader should be given a link to a dicussion of them. An editor already noted the issue of collusion. And the problem of imperfect cuts is like the problem of a participant being potentially blind and palsied — true but out of the relevant conceptual space.
The need to avoid “original research” and to cite “reliable sources” is of course very important, and might prove fatal to an attempt to discussion the extension in a Wikipedia article. —SlamDiego←T 07:46, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
I'm pretty sure there are published fair division methods that are stable to small judgment errors, so I wouldn't call this "out of the relevant conceptual space". CRGreathouse (t | c) 12:18, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
Whose notion of “small” are we using? —SlamDiego←T 01:05, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
I'll try to find you a reference. CRGreathouse (t | c) 22:45, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

I've come across this idea before - and I'm pretty sure it was in print. I don't remember though, and without sourcing (and the article is 5 years old) it should go, and the need to elaborate assumptions is moot. Rd232 talk 08:52, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Here's a bit on the web You cut I choose where the incorrect method is used.
The article Proportional (fair division) has a few fair division procedures for three or more people. I think the 'last diminisher' is probably the closest correct one to what was described.
Here's an example I just made up showing 'Pie method' is not a method of fair division for three people.
Suppose you have a pizza with jalapino chillis sprinkled unevenly on top so they are mostly in one third of the pizza. And there are persons Tom, Dick and Harry who are entitled to equal shares. And suppose also that Harry is a jalapino junkie who mainly wants the chillis but the other two don't mind either way.
The first person Tom cuts a third as exactly as he can out of the pizza which just happens to have most of the chillis on. It is offered to Dick first and he accepts it. Then there isn't enough of the chillis left in the remainder of the pizza to give Harry his fair 1/3 share. Dmcq (talk) 09:45, 8 August 2009 (UTC)
But, under this argument, the classic two-person case is also “unfair”. Suppose that Dick is out of the picture, and the jalapeños are entirely on one half of the pie. According to one of your implicit assumptions, the “fairest” way to divide this pie gives exactly that half to Harry (as Tom does not care). Yet, if Tom cuts, he will (under another of your assumptions), divide the pie into half randomly. The probability of the “fair”est division would be literally 0.
One might as well propose dividing a child in this way (without recipients being given a Solomonic option to pass on their shares). The method is plainly intended to be applied to goods and to services of a particular sort. —SlamDiego←T 14:11, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
The simplest fair division condition is that everyone gets at least 1⁄N by their own valuation, this is proportional (fair division). Exactly half is fair for two but more is also fair and better. If Tom cuts the pizza randomly in half as he doesn't care then Harry will just pick the bit with more jalapeños, in fact he will almost certainly get more than half as far as he is concerned. Dmcq (talk) 14:51, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
Ah, things should be as simple as possible, but no simpler. It's pretty clear that most people would see a division as unfair if it injured one innocent person without benefiting another, when this is not intrinsic to an “equal” division, which is exactly what happens in the above case of the half-jalapeño pizza. (Assuming that Tom and Harry are innocent, which, admittedly, is very questionable in the case of Harry.)
Assume that Tom is indifferent both to pickles and to jalapeños, that Harry regards them as complements, and that all of the pickles are on one half and all of the jalapeños are on the other. In Harry's eyes, the only way that the pie can be divided such that he gets 1⁄n of its value is if the pie is divided into two shares with an equal amount of each. The probability of Tom effecting such a division is 0.
Of course, we could amend the claim about fairness to a claim that the relevant value from which to compute the fraction is the post-division value, but this would mean that a division that reduced the value to at or below zero (as presumably in the case of the aforementioned baby) would be fair.
Again, the method is only meant to be applied to certain sorts of goods and of services. —SlamDiego←T 15:23, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
Having pickles and jalapeños linked in that way hardly sounds simple. There is a theory of fair division but it assumes everyone's values are positive and additive or at least a weak version of that. Anyway the point isn't to ensure both people view the other as getting the same as themselves, it is to ensure they get at least 1⁄n by their own valuation. They don't care what the other person gets. There's more complex versions where one wants to make sure no one envies anybody else but that's automatic for two people if they get at least a half by their own valuation. Dmcq (talk) 16:24, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
I"m not saying that having pickles and peppers linked in that way is simple; I'm saying that it's easy to construct goods and preferences such that the classic method won't result in a fair division. Nor did the pickles and peppers example involve seeking to get what the other person got per se. The point is that the classic method assumes something about the effective nature of the good or of the service, just as the above proposed extension assumes something about the above proposed good or service. It's fine to note when we are outside their frameworks, but simply calling them “wrong” is inappropriate. —SlamDiego←T 16:39, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
Are you saying the Pie method is a classic method? If so it deserves inclusion even if wrong by any reasonable criterion. That is what I was wondering about originally. Wikipedia is based on notability not truth. However I was unable to determine if it was notable. Have you seen it referenced somewhere other than a web page? Dmcq (talk) 16:55, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
I've been referring to the two-person method (of which the discussed extension is not the only possible extension) as “classic”. As to the extension, I'm unsure that it's “notable”, and I'm not personally aware of a prior statement of it in a “reliable source”. The remarks of CRGreathouse lead me to believe that such a source could be found, but that belief isn't an adequate substitute for the sourcing.
The main value, for the purposes of writing articles, of discussing the truth or falsity of the method is to direct us for what to seek in the literature. For example, if the method indeed were simply wrong, then we'd be surprised (though, sadly, not shocked) to find peer-reviewed literature that said otherwise, and there'd be less hope of finding any discussion at all. Likewise, if it were in fact applicable to any division, then we'd be more surprised to find criticisms of it. —SlamDiego←T 17:15, 9 August 2009 (UTC)
I'm almost certain I've seen the two-person case in the literature. It's basic enough that it might be hard to find outside a textbook or the like.
Here's a reference to the two-person case: "DD2 is related to the game 'one divides, the other chooses.' In this game, one player divides, say, a candy bar into integral pieces: 99% vs. 1%; 98% vs. 2%; etc. The other player chooses which portion it will take. The chooser has the advantage in this game, because if the divider does not make a perfectly even 50-50 cut, the chooser can take the larger portion." from Brams & Taylor, "Three solutions to divide the dollar". There are surely better ones in basic game theory texts.
The 'pickles and jalapeños' example shows that, if you allow non-weakly additive preferences, the two-person method is Pareto-inefficient. (This isn't a fatal flaw; that's a hard case.) But the same example shows that the three-person Pie method does not even produce a fair division, and that's where it transitions from flawed to wrong in my book. (Simpler example: the cutter values the pie uniformly and cuts a third that happens to have all the cherries. The second and third players value only the cherries.)
CRGreathouse (t | c) 18:49, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
You seem not to have followed the discussion. The pickles-and-jalapeños pie was a twist on a partly-jalapeños pie suggested by Dmcq, which is isomorphic to the cherry pie in your example. Dmcq explicitly located the issue of additivity in discussing the still-nastier pie. And, naturally, no claim was made that the particular extension under discussion of the classic method would somehow work for values of greater than 2. The point of the pickle-and-jalapeño case was not to find where the extension would work while the classic method failed; it was to show that each of these methods presumes something about the nature of the good or service to be divided, which presumption is not true of all good or services. If we define “fair” in some unnatural way, then we can recover the claim of “fairness” for any method, but a loss of Pareto optimality without a gain in equality will not accord with every-day notions of fairness; it will simply be seen as “unfair” that Harry couldn't get a better slice, when it could have come without loss to Tom. To call this extension wrong but the classic method right is simply inappropriate. They are both a right tool for their respective tasks, though the wrong tool for other tasks. —SlamDiego←T 20:43, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
I'm talking about the extension that is in the article Pie method that is being discussed. It's an extended answer to your question to me, "what problem do you have with the extension?" under the assumption you specified.
The classical method is envy-free; the extension is not. Does that work for you? That's pretty much the standard condition for fair division problems.
CRGreathouse (t | c) 21:54, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
No, it doesn't work for me. The problem is in your reference to “the standard condition”; it is not the standard condition used by lay-people; it is not the condition that the inventors of the classic method — which predates modern economics by millennia — were seeking to meet. Nor did the editors who gave us the article on the extension signal that they were using “fair” in the sense of some technical jargon, rather than in an every-day sense. I don't mind your insisting that the extension doesn't meet some criteria that the classic method does; I object to declaring either method as wrong by virtue of finding situations that one or both is really not meant to cover in the first place. —SlamDiego←T 08:38, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
I must admit I'm confused by what SlamDiego is referring to when he talks about an extension. Anyway the Divide and choose article is probably right to be a bit discursive rather than just fit in as a type of fair division. It was around long before the theory was invented after all. So I guess the additivity criterion should be added there as well rather than just being assumed and it would make the article more self contained. It doesn't look to me like pie method even deserves to become a redirect. Dmcq (talk) 08:22, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
Pretty plainly, the method in “Pie method” is an extension of the classic method for dividing a pie amongst two parties. There is some disagreement here as to whether the extension is “wrong”, but even were it wrong it would still be an extension. —SlamDiego←T 08:38, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
Im the absence of “reliable source” discussion of the extension, I don't see why anyone would have a problem with redirecting “Pie method” to a discussion of the classic algorithm. Many people will almost certainly search for discussion of the classical method by that name. Instead, I'm not sure that “Pie method” is a good name for the extension (were a “reliable source” found) because, again, it is not the only possible extension. —SlamDiego←T 08:42, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
To my mind, the only sensible options are redirecting it and deleting it as an unlikely redirect. CRGreathouse (t | c) 16:15, 12 August 2009 (UTC)
In the absence of “reliable sources”, I agree. I favor a redirect. —SlamDiego←T 03:59, 13 August 2009 (UTC)

GA Sweeps Reassessment of Frank Fetter

Frank Fetter has been nominated for a good article reassessment. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to good article quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, the good article status will be removed from the article. Reviewers' concerns are here. Ruslik_Zero 16:10, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

Paul Krugman article issues

Any one interested in the article and its surrounding ideas please come to overview and engage in editing for a broader consensus of ideas [8]. Currently the article is mostly too small as to ideas of what is good for inclusion... or not. Please pile in with ideas and suggestions. skip sievert (talk) 16:36, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Articles listed at AFD

Please contribute to the discussion (or even to the article if possible). Uncle G (talk) 01:12, 24 August 2009 (UTC)

Category:Markov chains and Category:Markov models

There is a naming dispute considering the correct name for the category for the main article Markov chain and related articles, see WP:CFD. 76.66.192.144 (talk) 03:22, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

  1. ^ Malefactors of Megawealth David M. Kennedy
  2. ^ Krugman, Paul (2001-10-07). "Fuzzy Math Returns". New York Times. New York Times. Retrieved 2009-08-01.
  3. ^ Krugman, Paul (2001-10-07). "Fuzzy Math Returns". New York Times. New York Times. Retrieved 2009-08-01.
  4. ^ Krugman, Paul (2003-02-07). "Is the Maestro A Hack? - The New York Times". New York Times. New York Times. Retrieved 2009-06-17.
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