There is a certain appeal to study the economic aspects of something that on first glance has nothing economic. Following the motto of this blog, I have reported on quite a few of those, such as boobs, beer, toilet seats and the scruples of teens. It is almost always good to stretch the boundaries of what we can do with Economics, what I have called the imperialism of Economics. But in rare cases this is going too far.
Daniel Farhat presents us with such a case, wherein he studies the Economics of vampires. The paper uses an agent-based model to follow the interactions of humans and vampires and draws inferences about aggregate phenomena. I have had my issue in the past with agent-based models, in a large part because they are build on unjustified assumptions with no robustness tests, and this papers makes me most concerned about these issues. Indeed, the model is built in a complete empirical vacuum, and none of the modeling assumptions are tested for robustness. Furthermore, because vampires never existed, and with current medical knowledge never will, the paper is pointless.
Daniel Farhat presents us with such a case, wherein he studies the Economics of vampires. The paper uses an agent-based model to follow the interactions of humans and vampires and draws inferences about aggregate phenomena. I have had my issue in the past with agent-based models, in a large part because they are build on unjustified assumptions with no robustness tests, and this papers makes me most concerned about these issues. Indeed, the model is built in a complete empirical vacuum, and none of the modeling assumptions are tested for robustness. Furthermore, because vampires never existed, and with current medical knowledge never will, the paper is pointless.
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