The problem with adding the the word “science” to the study of human individual/collective response/motivation is the expectation of some “unification of understanding”. This is not to say that the scientific method cannot be used to discern first order effects from second order effects in economics. I am just saying that human beings change their behavior with time/education.

Even a donkey knows that the length of two sides of a triangle, added up, exceed that of the third side – since it sooner than later takes the shortest route inside a manger to the fodder! Wonder why Duflo traveled all the way to Rajasthan for her work. There’s plenty to work on right here in the US, even on the subject of vaccination. She could, for instance, study if incentives will sway parents to get their daughters vaccinated with the HPV.

I would go as far as to say that this was a pulse reward!

Btw according to the introduction preceeding the Sach’s speech at Google ( April 9, 2008 Authors@Google: Jeffrey D. Sachs video link here), Sach is considered to be the youngest tenured prof (may not be just eco) at Harvard. The desi connection to Sach’s is that he was awarded Padma Bhushan, highest civilian honor by the Indian govt. in 2007

Well there are economists like Jeffery Sachs from the Earth Insititute who believe that the amount of money spent by developed world is pittance considering the scale of developmental problems. From his writings I presume he falls into the “planners” category.

Economic policy is based on a collection of half-truths. The nature of these half-truths changes occasionally. Economics as a scholarly discipline consists in the periodic rediscovery and refinement of old half-truths. Little progress has been made in the past century or so towards understanding how economic policy, rules, legislation and regulation influence economic fluctuations, financial stability, growth, poverty or inequality. We know that a few extreme approaches that have been tried yield lousy results – central planning, self-regulating financial markets – but we don’t know much that is constructive beyond that. The main uses of economics as a scholarly discipline are therefore negative or destructive – pointing out that certain things don’t make sense and won’t deliver the promised results. This blog post falls into that category.

right, this is the classic cog sci distinction between slow & deliberative rational general intelligence vs. “hard & fast” reflexive competencies. the main wrinkle is that i think too many people neglect that what was one slow & deliberative can slowly shift toward “hard & fast” reflexive with enough experience & repetition. i especially thought this paragraph was important: In the decades since, the laces have been unpicked. It is not just that economists are nosing into new fields of social behaviour. They have been doing that at least since Gary Becker of the University of Chicago wrote about crime and the family in the 1960s and 1970s. But today’s economists show no great attachment to the rational model of behaviour that guided Mr Becker. Economic theory has become so eclectic that ingenious researchers can usually cook up a plausible model to explain whatever empirical results they find interesting. Economics is now defined neither by its subject matter nor by its method.

the decline of old line econ, sociology, psychology, etc., will hopefully cede ground to a new integrative social science (sort of the social science equivalent of the rise of molecular biology/biochemistry/biophysics through a synthesis of techniques and topics).