Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Economics

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[edit] Article alerts

This is a notice to let you know about Article alerts, a fully-automated subscription-based news delivery system designed to notify WikiProjects and Taskforces when articles are entering Articles for deletion, Requests for comment, Peer review and other workflows (full list). The reports are updated on a daily basis, and provide brief summaries of what happened, with relevant links to discussion or results when possible. A certain degree of customization is available; WikiProjects and Taskforces can choose which workflows to include, have individual reports generated for each workflow, have deletion discussion transcluded on the reports, and so on. An example of a customized report can be found here.

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Message sent by User:Addbot to all active wiki projects per request, Comments on the message and bot are welcome here.

Thanks. — Headbomb {^ταλκ_{κοντριβς} – WP Physics} 09:06, 15 March, 2009 (UTC)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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; Steven M. Sheffrin (2003). Economics: Principles in action. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458: Pearson Prentice Hall. pp. 79. ISBN 0-13-063085-3. http://www.pearsonschool.com/index.cfm?locator=PSZ3R9&PMDbSiteId=2781&PMDbSolutionId=6724&PMDbCategoryId=&PMDbProgramId=12881&level=4.

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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] Statistics portal at Featured portal candidates

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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)