Oxbridge Economics interview preparation

The report (and your above post) make it sound as though the chief virtue of the essay is that it's technical and that you won the prize for having a bit of maths in it. Economics is generally a subject where form sadly dominates function, but I don't think "technicality" should be a criterion in an economics essay pitched at secondary school students.

That said, I haven't read your essay. Maybe your model really did offer a unique and illuminating way of approaching the question that was not found in the essays of the other finalists who didn't win an award. But the citation basically reads "for putting some equations in it" (without even referring to the quality or usefulness of your model), which I don't think should have been a factor.

In any case, you really don't need to give a **** about what I say. Winning the prize is a great achievement.

Philip laid out a multi-equation macro model of a kind not normally encountered before university level, and related it well to the question, though more emphasis on financial issues would have been welcome

Quite the contrary. I chose 'technicality' over empirical rigour and financial discussion. This was cited as why the 2 essays placed ahead of mine were as such. You have no logical basis for deducing how virtuous different aspects of my essay were, merely going on 1 sentence of a report.

Furthermore, with regards your bold point, you have quite obviously misread even the snippet of information you were given:



Learn to read first mate

But if you'd like to actually read my essay and have a meaningful discussion, PM me your e-mail and i'd be more than happy to send it to you

It is impossible to predict the future? Really? People do it all the time, and in my long answer I elaborated on my point, which is that it isn't guess work at all. You can't 'yeah right' these people, they didn't just wake up one morning and claim that a recession was coming as a result of the housing bubble. They use theories and have a deep understanding of financial systems. They have written at length and with astonishing accuracy about how the current recession would unfold. The clues were there all along and only some people picked up on it/decided to speak out. Nouriel Roubini? Paul Krugman? Hyman Minksy? The list goes on. These are economic weather men - they use data and theories to predict the future. Use your hindsight and tell me that it was impossible to predict the current recession.

The conclusions that I draw are:

- It is possible to predict* the future and prevent future recessions.
- Economists have the job of predicting these crises.
- Economists are also there to find solutions to the problems when they arise.

Many economists failed to predict the crises, and macro-economics still struggles to find solutions to these recessions.

*Predict: to tell about something in advance of its occurrence by means of special knowledge or inference.

no, its not as easy as you think. once you can "predict" it, there is little you can do to stop it anyway. in fact business cycle theory is one of the most important macro issues that is little understood. if you think you can predict and stop recessions in the future, go ahead and win that Nobel Prize.

plus, im not gonna argue with you, I attended an informal lecture by one of my unis profs who was on the MPC (06-09) and he basically said the same thing.

"economic weathermen". lol. you disregard analogies and yet use them yourself.

Learn to read first mate

But if you'd like to actually read my essay and have a meaningful discussion, PM me your e-mail and i'd be more than happy to send it to you

Two things:

1. Yes you can predict recessions, and like I said before I believe recessions are inevitable. There are many reason why it's difficult to stop the recessions caused be massive debt and bubbles - Hyman Minsky really has the best explanations of this.

2. I thought you liked analogies.

You're kidding right? If there are 100 economists and 10 of them foresee a crisis whereas 90 of them don't then how can that possibly suggest that economists are able to predict the future? One of the contributing factors of the whole crisis is that banks were using models developed by economists that turned out not to work, that is, something unanticipated came up that violated the assumptions and operations of those models. Even economists don't claim they can predict the future. Paul Krugman is a smart guy and the fact that he is an insightful and well informed individual means that he is in a good position to comment on current events, but you're deluding yourself if you think he sits down at home and does a bit of dynamic stochastic general equlibrium analysis and out pops "Obama should increase the stimulus package!"

The current recession was predicted - argue with that.

The current recession was predicted - argue with that.

Yes by a minute fraction of people who saw what was going on in finance and foresaw that the system might eventually run into problems. That has absolutely nothing to do with academic economics or academic economists. If only a minute fraction of economists are able to predict something as fundamental as the current crisis then clearly there's something wrong with the subject.

that is where your flaw is!

there was hedge fund manager who predicted this crisis 15 years ago.

he was sacked because he missed out in the boom years.

do you get my point? predicting something does not equate with it will happen.

ps dont ask me, i didn write down details, so cant tell you his name or what fund.

Thanks for agreeing with me, let me quote myself (ironically where the debate began).

Fiasco (1 Day Ago: 15th November 2009 19:58)

The failure of macroeconomics to get a single thing right.



Of course not. But when a prediction is backed up with evidence and logical theories, as well as examples of past financial crises, it's not just someone guessing: you must take notice! Nobody did, and even if they did it would have been near impossible to prevent a recession... What's so hard to accept? People predicted the recession with great accuracy, whether people took notice or whether many people predicted it is irrelevant.

Why do you keep going in circles?

im not,im just arguing that i dont agree with you.

also, you are retreating in your argument: "even if they did it would have been near impossible to prevent a recession... " whereas before you loudly stated it was an "economists job to prevent recessions".

New question:
Explain the reasons why a bus driver in Germany earns over 16 times that of an equally productive driver in Nigeria? Why do wages in developed countries dwarf those in the developing world even when workers are equally efficient?

We must take into account the relative purchasing power of the amounts these people earn. Yes, one may earn 16 times as much but that does not necessarily buy him 16 times more goods in his respective country. Still, we could attribute this to the availability of labour in these countries. Their may be excess supply in a developing country due to high unemployment levels which places downwards pressure on price (wages) and results in a lower market-clearing price. Similarly, demand for bus journeys may vary in these two countries. Firstly, a developed country is likely to have a better infrastructure and as a result people are more inclined to use the busses, which in turn increases demand for bus drivers (since demand for workers is derived from the service they are needed to provide)

That's a bit of what I quickly thought of...I'm sure there's more to it

MRP

MRP?

MRP

New question:
Explain the reasons why a bus driver in Germany earns over 16 times that of an equally productive driver in Nigeria? Why do wages in developed countries dwarf those in the developing world even when workers are equally efficient?