Welcoming critique? I didn't get that at all. I personally think writing "shut the fuck up" removes any sense of critique being welcomed.
The author does kindly gives us permission to critique as long as we accept his model - a very naive device with zero academic or economic justification.
You're leaving the part out where he says "and write some fucking code." He wants people to show him he's wrong with analysis/simulation instead of tell him he's wrong with their opinions, which is entirely valid.
Expert opinions are often based on economic models which use incredibly simplified assumptions and questionably appropriate mathematical techniques. At least this guy is willing to post his model for the world to pick apart.
As a direct criticism, the choice of the Normal distribution adds nothing to the model other than acting as a cover for the author's choice of point estimates. I believe you would get the same results independent of the distribution. Choosing a Normal distribution serves only to create an apparent range of results that are weighted towards the author's preferred choices of values.
Peer-reviewed economic models would have to justify their model assumptions in a more robust way, including empirical data where appropriate. I'm not an expert but I expect this is a good place to start:
http://www.journals.elsevier.com/economic-modelling/
All models use simplified assumptions and questionably appropriate techniques, I agree - that is practically the definition of 'model'. However, a useful model should justify those assumptions and techniques using current research-level knowledge, and/or show how the model applies successfully to reality.
I see this model to be as useful to economic discussion as saying "the world is flat, plus or minus 5 degrees". It ignores all current work in the field.
If you're expecting research-level detail in a blog post from someone who is admittedly not an economist, your expectations are too high. The post was meant to present a simple Monte Carlo simulation in Python using a current topic as its subject. He isn't writing a NYT Op-Ed citing his results as evidence that BJ > BI based on sophisticated modeling techniques.
For the record, all I want you to do is clearly state your assumptions and your model. Then I can derive your conclusions for myself. I can clearly understand what you believe about the world, and if I disagree with you I can understand why.
If you just say "oh the world is so complicated and I like basic income because maybe it will reduce the # of prisoners and reduce income inequality", I have no idea what you believe will actually happen or why, and you probably don't either. For a great example of this, take a look at this post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6725282
I recognise that I am not an expert in economics. I am certainly not good enough to presume that I can create a model that compares with cutting edge models.
As a mathematician/computer scientist, I recognise that there is limited benefit to me expressing my simple thoughts in mathematical form.
However, I am opinionated enough to have an opinion:
- I believe that basic income allows people to invest in themselves through education or simply taking small risks without the constant and desperate need to either work or degradingly grovel to the state to pay for their basic upkeep. This would allow people the option of taking entrepreneurial risks which are generally available only to the upper-middle- and rich-classes. I do not believe that everyone would take any such opportunity but I believe we should seek to give this type of opportunity to everyone, and a basic income seems a fair way of doing that.
- I believe that basic income would create an economic shock in any country that implemented it universally, the consequences of which are not immediately obvious, may cause difficulties perhaps including rent-seeking behaviour from certain sectors and gross inflation of necessities. I believe that the unknown consequences make implementation politically difficult, but that the eventual outcome would be good for society as a whole.
I already include the former in my model, albeit in a very limited form. See the jk_rowling term - you probably want to alter that until it describes your beliefs rather than mine. Then if I find it plausible, I will update my model to include it and see if it significantly affects my results.
I don't know what your second bullet point is talking about - unlike a mathematical model, your words are unclear.
> unlike a mathematical model, your words are unclear.
Given that, I would argue that my words are a better model for reality than mathematics :)
> you probably want to alter that until it describes your beliefs rather than mine.
Exactly. You are just stating your beliefs. The fact that you have stated them in a faux-mathematical way doesn't make them any more sensible or coherent.
Did you figure that out from the part of the blog post where I explicitly said "the involvement of numbers does not make an argument empirically correct..."?
The math simply makes my assumptions obvious and my reasoning clear. That's all it is meant to do. And again, if you believe my assumptions are not sensible, replace them with your own and rerun the model.
After you do that, I won't be confused about what you believe.
>And again, if you believe my assumptions are not sensible, replace them with your own and rerun the model.
And again, I won't be doing that because I think representing the situation as a naive, untestable model adds zero value to any debate about Basic Income. I don't believe that what I said was especially hard to understand for someone who had an interest, and you could have asked me to clarify any point you wanted.
If this model is supposed to represent the total of your beliefs about Basic Income, then it's not clear to me that you have considered the issue at all.
The part where you say "I’m more interested in Monte Carlo than in politics" makes this explicitly clear.
The author does kindly gives us permission to critique as long as we accept his model - a very naive device with zero academic or economic justification.