Well, whilst it’s basically Astrology, it does decorate itself heavily with Mathematics.
Comment on Flowchart for STEM
FartsWithAnAccent@fedia.io 3 months ago
Economics is STEM???
Aceticon@lemmy.world 3 months ago
StopJoiningWars@discuss.online 3 months ago
Econometrics, data science, behavioural economics, game theory, micro and macroeconomics, public policy, all of it uses the scientific method and is empirical.
Could you clarify which part of economics you believe is not scientific?
Aceticon@lemmy.world 3 months ago
First, Game Theory is from Mathematics, not Economics.
As for the rest, the lack of reliability of central bank forecasts of thing such as GDP Growth and Inflation would indicate that whatever they used to base their forecasts on isn’t reliable enough for publishing.
Back in the day I worked in Finance and followed those things, it was quite extraordinary just how much of that was flipped around and re-explained when the final numbers came out and things turned out to be very different from earlier forecasts.
A lot if not most of the Macroeconomics does not seem to be Falsifiable.
StopJoiningWars@discuss.online 3 months ago
You could literally apply this nonsensical logic to any other field that uses maths and say “it’s mathematics, not X”. This is a non-argument.
“Policy Making is Politics”, politicians implement policies, but the ones behind the scenes who actually do the math to optimise these policies and advise politicians are economists.
“Conclusion-Driven” this is just plain false. There is an overwhelming amount of empiricism in the economics field.
“Economists have predicted 8 of the last 2 Recessions” … and have learned from these mistakes. These were described and studied in detail in my course, and you then go on to say that macroeconomics do not seem to be falsifiable. Yes there are no ways to ethically have experiments in economics, but there are plenty of workarounds to not being able to experiment. Natural experiments are rare but they do exist, as well as a myriad of other data science methods to derive conclusions from real life scenarios.
Finally, “when I worked in Finance”. Finance is a single field of economics, it does not encompass all there is to learn from economics. There is also a conflation from those who study finance courses that what is taught in economics courses is similar. It isn’t. Economics is a STEM field, while finance is a business field.
mineralfellow@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Yes. In the heirarchy of science, it ranks just below literature.
StopJoiningWars@discuss.online 3 months ago
Having done a degree, yes. It’s entirely empirical.
Quill7513@slrpnk.net 3 months ago
It falls into both Science and Math
something_random_tho@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Hey, if biology qualifies, why not that?
Artyom@lemm.ee 3 months ago
Not only that, but it apparently doesn’t even involve math anymore!
Isoprenoid@programming.dev 3 months ago
Economics is science but with resources.
Economics is like ecology for the financial / resource world.
olafurp@lemmy.world 3 months ago
I’m under the impression that it’s half math half psychology of groups.
Isoprenoid@programming.dev 3 months ago
Yeah, part of ecology looks at relationships between groups of organisms, and economics looks at relationships between economic agents. Those relationships require understanding of behaviours and motivations of those groups.
olafurp@lemmy.world 3 months ago
That’s a great way to put it. The ecology of money goods and services.