The use of knowledge in blogging

The title is a nod to Hayek's famous essay "The use of knowledge in society".

I think that essay is the best thing Hayek ever wrote. But I don't really know that, because I haven't read everything Hayek ever wrote. Possibly nobody has read everything Hayek ever wrote (except Hayek, but he's dead). But there will be people reading this who have read more Hayek than me. Or just different things that Hayek wrote than me. And if you put together all the different things Hayek wrote that different people reading this have read, it will be more Hayek than I have read, and probably more than than any single one of those individuals has read. So if I've missed some even better writing by Hayek, I will be sure to hear about it in the comments. Or perhaps another blogger will post and say "Nick, you're wrong, you've missed...".

Which illustrates my point here, and Hayek's point in that essay. Individually, each of us knows little. But we know different things. The problem in society is to bring individuals' disparate knowledge together. Hayek's point is that a price system is a good way to bring disparate knowledge together. My point is that blogging is a good way to bring disparate knowledge together.

A simple theory of the failure of economics in the recent financial crisis is that macroeconomists didn't understand finance, and finance people didn't understand macro. (I have forgotten who came up with that theory, but someone reading this may remember, and will comment, which again illustrates my point). It's hard enough to know a lot about a lot, but the way in which academic conversations typically take place, through journal articles, books, and seminars, exacerbates this specialisation. Was it Deirdre McClosky who said that economics is a conversation (illustrating my point yet again, because someone will probably remember)? It is a conversation, but it's usually a conversation in which small groups of like-minded people huddle together to talk about the same narrow set of things. And there are often very long lags, like years, between someone saying something in one journal article and someone else replying in another. Those who are not ordained members of the academic cathedral aren't specifically excluded from the conversation, but are rarely invited, and it is usually hard for them to take part, so they rarely do. And usually only specialists understand the conversation anyway, in part because each huddle of specialists has their own gang code.

Blogging is a different form of conversation, and in some ways it is a better form of conversation. It's much easier to listen in and join in. Your physical location is almost irrelevant (time zones apart). Where you are employed doesn't matter (as long as you have time to join in). The time lags between getting an idea, writing it, publishing it, comments appearing, other bloggers posting in response, your replying to those comments and responses, are very short. It's like a 24-hour seminar held everywhere at once with a record of what everyone said, so you can even arrive late at the seminar and not miss anything.

And bloggers try to get as wide an audience as possible, so try to make their writing accessible to as wide an audience as possible, which means including non-specialists. (I don't really know why the difference in technology leads bloggers to try to reach a wider audience than authors of academic journals, but it seems to happen anyway, for whatever reason).

Comments are an integral part of blogging. Many of these potential benefits require comments if we want to turn them into actual benefits. When I post on some subject, there is almost always someone who knows more about some part of that subject than I do. Or maybe someone who knows more about most parts. And they can comment, and add their knowledge to the mix. And these are people in different specialisations, different countries, not in economics, who I have never met or have never heard of. People I would never get to meet if I gave a seminar. And they all get to meet me too, and each other. And commenters can argue among themselves, not just with me. And anyone can read them, as well as me. Knowing they are out there frees me to write about things where I know I don't know everything, or even much. And sometimes, it frees me just to try to ask a good question.

I'm not saying economists should abandon all other forms of conversation, and just blog. I don't need to argue that blogging is always better, just that it is sometimes better. There's a role for blogging, as well as other forms of economic conversation. Maybe even some of us, with a comparative advantage in blogging (we are really good at blogging, or really useless at anything else, take your pick) should specialise in doing it.

I have learned more from reading blogs, and from writing blogs, than I would have done otherwise. I have learned far more widely than I would have learned otherwise. Blogs are a great way to bring together the disparate knowledge of widely dispersed people. Before blogs I was in danger of becoming a burned-out ex university administrator. Now I haven't felt as intellectually alive since grad school.

(And the biggest danger to blogging is lack of civility, because it can cause the conversation to break up again into huddles of like-minded people.)

I was going to write something along these lines before I read Kartik Athreya on the subject. (And I would never have read him if it weren't for bloggers like Scott Sumner or David Beckworth responding to him.)

Comments

[kevin quinn]

Nick: What you say about the promise of blogging is true. In reality, though, very few blogs fulfill this promise. One of the rare exceptions is this blog. And really, your skill at running a virtual seminar is nothing short of amazing. This is one of the few blogs that make me think every time I read it. The way you pose questions is crucial, too: Let's think about this problem as if for the first time, without any preconceptions. What blogging needs to fulfill its promise is 1..2..3... many Nick Rowes!

[anon]

Good post.

"Now I haven't felt as intellectually alive since grad school."

Says it all there, doesn't it?

More generally, do you think the econoblogosphere has increased the intensity and effectiveness with which various ideas are challenged? If so, isn't that a good thing? E.g. did Krugman's "Dark Age of Macro" have an effect that was more intense and important (whether or not you believe in it) than would have been the case without the blogosphere, or is the sphere just a side show to what would have happened via academia anyway?

[Alex]

A simple theory of the failure of economics in the recent financial crisis is that macroeconomists didn't understand finance, and finance people didn't understand macro.

It could also be argued that the macroeconomists didn't understand macro, and the finance people didn't understand finance!

Anyway, onto the topic at hand. This is one reason why I would like to see a move away from 20th Century-style peer review and pay journals, and a move towards Open Access, with Google Wave/Wikipedia type tools that merge the review process into the creation process.

Imagine if Charles Darwin had known about Gregor Mendel . . .

[Ross]

"And the biggest danger to blogging is lack of civility, because it can cause the conversation to break up again into huddles of like-minded people."

Isn't this a major danger to academic discussion too?

Judging by the current dynamics in the US political media, I would say that it is probably the biggest threat to reasoned political discourse.

[Richard H. Serlin]

"Which illustrates my point here, and Hayek's point in that essay. Individually, each of us knows little. But we know different things. The problem in society is to bring individuals' disparate knowledge together. Hayek's point is that a price system is a good way to bring disparate knowledge together. My point is that blogging is a good way to bring disparate knowledge together."

This is an extremely important point (and well said), the power of a WELL FUNCTIONING marketplace of ideas. I've noted it many times before when I've said how beneficial the blogosphere has been for debunking quickly and widely, how it's exposed ideas to so much more scrutiny. How lies and misleading that used to go unchallenged in the old media, with it's greatly limited space and time, are now challenged and exposed far more and in real time.

[Richard H. Serlin]

"but it's usually a conversation in which small groups of like-minded people huddle together to talk about the same narrow set of things. And there are often very long lags, like years, between someone saying something in one journal article and someone else replying in another."

Another very important group of reasons for value of the blogosphere. I also like that there's a written record of conversations among economists accessible to everyone, as opposed to casual oral conversations in offices and at dinner.

[Richard H. Serlin]

"I don't really know why the difference in technology leads bloggers to try to reach a wider audience than authors of academic journals"

In academic journals professors really need only care what the editors and peers think, because promotion and rewards are based almost solely on publication in academic journals and citing in academic journals. That others read your work typically means next to nothing in the academic reward system.

[K]

Cheers Nick!

As you say, civility is everything in a productive community. And when that fails, patience. You have more than your fair share of both.

Thank you for creating this!

[Alex]

And the biggest danger to blogging is lack of civility, because it can cause the conversation to break up again into huddles of like-minded people.

You would think that, but then that's what makes you a poopy head!!!!111

[Nick Rowe]

Thanks Kevin!

anon: Paul Krugman's Dark Age point needed saying. My guess is that it had a much quicker effect due to the blogoshere, but it would probably have eventually gotten out without the blogosphere. But that's just a guess. My sense is that only a minority of academics are aware of the blogosphere. At a Carleton conference a month ago, I realised just how unaware they were. Scott Sumner's view that the Fed caused the recession by having too tight monetary policy, for example, was just not on their radar. Which shocked me, though it shouldn't have done. It was like entering another, sealed off, world. You can like or dislike Scott's theory, but it has to be out there on the list of theories. But a minority of people in academia, and the Bank of Canada, etc., from what I hear directly from them, are definitely reading, even if they don't comment. And that minority includes some very top people.

Alex: the peer review thing is the big difference. Blog posts are reviewed (by other bloggers and by commenters), but they are reviewed *after* publication. And the best thing is that the reviews are not all by "peers", if that means "people within the same narrow specialty who think the same way". But it's very hard to "count" publications on the blogoshere for anything in academic "output". The closest we have is the Palgrave blog citation count. WCI is currently ranked #8 in the world, of economics and finance blogs! Yipee! http://www.econolog.net/blog_search.php?blog_id=288 Unfortunately, the Palgrave site has been frozen for the last 2 weeks, with no updating. I don't know what's gone wrong.

Ross: lack of civility can certainly be a problem in academia too. Though usually less of a problem, I think. And the political discourse in the US worries me too.

Richard: "In academic journals professors really need only care what the editors and peers think, because promotion and rewards are based almost solely on publication in academic journals and citing in academic journals. That others read your work typically means next to nothing in the academic reward system."

Yep. That theory makes sense. (Except you need at least some people to read your article, if they are going to cite it; or, maybe not!). I think it's complementary to the theory I came up with after writing that: selection bias; those who want to be widely read enter the blogosphere, and those who don't, don't.

K: thanks!

Alex: my morning chuckle!

[Ray Sawhill]

Great points. Can I venture a related one? It's that one big problem with economics (and especially academic economics) is that economists have a tendency to fall in love with their theories and models. (Hey, that's one big problem with academics generally, but getting back to my point.) Isn't that Yves Smith's point in "Econned"? They live in their own little world, they converse with their own little circles of colleagues, they polish their own little data sets and arguments ... And then they're (once again) completely surprised when reality snaps back.

Blogging opens the economics discussion up to everyone. And how cool it is that many people have something to offer that can enrich the discussion. Should that really be a surprise? The "economics" dimension of life is one all of us explore. Everyone has his/her own experiences of money, trade, cycles, personalities, work, business, etc, just as we have our own experiences of love, travel, health, pleasure, pain, etc. We sift and sort it. We gab about it. We compare notes. One result: A lot of us have semi-worthwhile observations, jokes, questions and musings to share.

Perhaps one upshot will be that the theory-bound quality of too much econ will crack open. Or am I being naive?

[Nick Rowe]

Ray: Thanks!
"It's that one big problem with economics (and especially academic economics) is that economists have a tendency to fall in love with their theories and models." But that's what's so great about economics! Economists love doing economics ;-) But maybe they are too monogamous.

"And then they're (once again) completely surprised when reality snaps back." Yes, but it would be even worse if they weren't sometimes surprised, because they ignored reality completely, or had vacuous theories that fit with anything possible.

Economics needs to be theoretical. All understanding is theoretical. But there's a wider range of observations and theoretical insights than any individual, or even all economists, can know. Economics is about (a large part of) everyday life. Not all data comes from Statistics Canada.

Take one small example: Frances' previous post adds data by noticing (while she was on holiday) that "front of the line passes" sometimes exist. I didn't know that. It changes the way I think about queues, which are a form of excess demand. It may change the way I think about sticky prices and wages, and aggregate demand deficiences, which are key ingredients of my macroeconomic theory.

[hosertohoosier]

Once upon a time literacy was not widespread. Most people would have newspapers or books read to them by others, or would acquire news and knowledge through word of mouth. There has always been a process of filtration whereby ideas travel from experts to the public.

If Athreya is to convincingly show that econ blogging is bad, then he needs to show that econ blogging leads to WORSE results than people watching TV pundits or reading books by public intellectuals. Non-economists are naturally curious about all of these issues because it affects their lives (and since some non-economists vote, it has implications for public policy too).

If economists don't step into the public intellectual void others, who are less qualified (or less scrupulous), will. Can serious economists compete with public intellectuals that make tautological or empirically false arguments? Yes, by writing well, using evidence and directly addressing bad arguments. Blogs are even better suited for this kind of pluralistic debate. Blog entries are short - usually shorter than a newspaper article - and tend to link to one another.

In political science we used to be very afraid at how poorly informed voters were. However, we found that by using simple heuristics, most voters act similarly to how a well-informed individual in the same circumstances would. In other words, the ability of the public to understand ideas is better than we think. Of course we need to make sure that sophisticated ideas get out there, otherwise the public will have nothing to go on. If Athreya feels that the right ideas aren't getting out there, then he should probably start a blog.

[hosertohoosier]

PS: A possibly dumb/tangential question... My understanding is that this debate ties into the Freshwater-Saltwater divide in the US (the nature of arcane formal models being that they are often difficult to translate into lay-speak). Is Canadian econ academia similarly divided?

[Alex]

Scott Sumner's view that the Fed caused the recession by having too tight monetary policy

I would object to the word "caused" here. Perhaps Sumner would use that word, or perhaps this is just an artifact of having someone else paraphrase his view quickly, either way, I don't think it can be said that too tight monetary policy "caused" the recession. Perhaps a reasonable argument can be made that the Fed "failed to prevent" the recession by keeping monetary policy too tight, but that's not "cause" in my philosophical playbook. Though perhaps I'm lacking there, or perhaps I've been seeing too many Austrians about these days, who seem to think the Fed is the cause of all of the world's ills.

But it's very hard to "count" publications on the blogoshere for anything in academic "output".

I'm not sure I agree. I mean the citation indices for regular academia don't seem much better:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citation_impact

Perhaps going with a blogosphere version of PLoS's metrics would be useful. See for instance:

http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/metrics/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.0020124

But I'm not sure it is important to have this stuff for the academic blogosphere (or for my idea of Wikis and such like for the future of academic publishing). What is surely important about free publishing (like blogging) is not "Who is right?" or "Who has the biggest numbers?", but "What is the consensus?" and "Is this view understood?".

[Nick Rowe]

hosertohoosier: I almost feel that Threya's essay *was* a blog post. As someone else remarked on another blog (I forget where): he achieved a bigger response from other bloggers in one post than most bloggers dream about!

I see it as only accidentally related to the freshwater/saltwater divide. There's a similar divide in Canadian economics, but I think it's less geographical than demographic. Regardless of what one thinks of its merits as a theoretical approach, there's been more "progress" (as defined internally) within freshwater than saltwater recently, I think. That's where the action has been, so that's what grad students are taught, because grad students want to go where the action is, and younger faculty normally do most of the grad teaching, because they are more likely to be up to speed on the latest stuff. Lots of exceptions of course.

Alex: the debate over "caused" or "allowed to happen" is as much philosophical as economic. It depends on what you see monetary policy as doing. Did the driver break the speed limit when going downhill, or did he fail to prevent the car from breaking the speed limit, by not raising his foot off the gas pedal quickly enough? Scott says "caused", because he sees the Fed as controlling NGDP (speed), not instruments like interest rates (gas pedals). To my mind it's another debate over the social construction of monetary policy.

"But I'm not sure it is important to have this stuff for the academic blogosphere (or for my idea of Wikis and such like for the future of academic publishing). What is surely important about free publishing (like blogging) is not "Who is right?" or "Who has the biggest numbers?", but "What is the consensus?" and "Is this view understood?"."

Yep, but professors need tenure, and promotion, and higher pay for performance, and want to get better jobs in better universities. Plus we want the respect and recognition of our peers, and the feeling that what we are doing is important and seen as such.

Part of it is just time. We have a lot of experience with using journal articles to measure performance, despite their flaws, and so there's a lot of "case law" that's built up over the years. I really feel for any Dean, Chair, or tenure and promotion committee that has to start from scratch, and evaluate a professor's blogging.

On which subject, my own vested interest and bias should be obvious, of course. Though fortunately, it doesn't matter that much to me, as it would to younger, less job-secure, and more ambitious academics. But it still matters.

[Ray Sawhill]

"Economics needs to be theoretical. All understanding is theoretical."

Now there I disagree with you completely! Take restaurant chefs, for instance. Certainly they can be said to "understand" how to get appealing food out to numerous customers in a prompt manner. But in what sense is this understanding of theirs theoretical?

I dunno, I have this feeling that 1) academics and intellectuals will tend to turn things into theories that don't really need to be theories, simply because that's something academics and intellectuals are constitutionally prone to doing, and 2) this can become a problem, maybe especially in a field like econ. Econ strikes me as 'way more akin to cooking -- a practical art -- than it does to, say, theoretical physics.

[Nick Rowe]

Ray: "Now there I disagree with you completely! Take restaurant chefs, for instance. Certainly they can be said to "understand" how to get appealing food out to numerous customers in a prompt manner. But in what sense is this understanding of theirs theoretical?"

OK, any restaurant chefs reading this who can put Ray over the hot stove on this one? My guess is that they have a deeply theoretical understanding of what they are doing, even though they may or may not think of it as "theory". And certainly it's a theoretical understanding of what e.g. heat does to flavour that's backed up by lots of practical observations and experience. But it's a theory. And sometimes, just sometimes, they will find their theory is wrong, and are surprised to learn that a slightly different type of steak doesn't turn out tender if you cook it like the other steaks, and you need a higher heat. Or something.

Take another example. When I'm driving into work, at all times I have a complete theory of what the other drivers around me are doing and are likely to do. And I update my theory second-by-second in the light of new observations. Those aren't just coloured blobs of data I see in my windscreen and mirrors. I don't just stay between the white lines at the speed limit. That's how I avoid crashing (touch wood) -- because my theories are generally good theories. I understand what they are doing, and what they are probably going to do. (I think it's called "defensive driving", but I'm not sure about that.)

And the little reading I have done on how to drive a car very fast around a corner quickly turned deeply theoretical. "Late apex"; "scandinavian twitch", etc. all about weight transfer, tire slip angles, etc.

[Stephen Gordon]

The difference is that we can't do controlled experiments. Chefs can control their environments so that they can be sure that if they do they same thing, they get the same result - without knowing why. Of course, a good chef *will* know why.

But nonexperimental data will always require a theory to interpret it.

[Ray Sawhill]

Nick -- I think you may be talking about your predilections, habits, tastes, ways of going about things, etc. (Either that or you've got the world's broadest conception of what a theory is.) You may work from an idea or a theory of things, but you're probably also a rather intellectually-inclined person, and are drawn to behaving in that way. But people involved in many crafts don't work that way at all. Having, for instance, a sense that putting a pot of broth over a flame 1) will heat it up and 2) may bring out different flavors in it is something I don't think a lot of people would call "theory." I think they'd be more likely to call it common sense or practical experience - the kind of thing a chef obviously needs to know in order to function as a chef. These are people who work from instinct, training, experience, taste, intuition, fantasy, a sense of fun, etc. If there's "theory" to be found in there somewhere, it certainly doesn't predominate, let alone originate.

There's a handy and useful distinction that has often been made between theory-style (book l'arnin', abstract, often top-down) approaches to subjects, and activities and practical, seat-of-the-pants, learn-as-you-go, often bottom-up ways of exploring and getting to know activities and subjects. Michael Oakeshott, Michael Polanyi and Stephen Toulmin are all good on the theme.

[RSJ]

Beautiful post. These blogs are a great resource. I've learned a ton, and have gotten to engage in stimulating discussions. I also don't remember learning this much since I was in grad school, or my early start-up days. Both Nick and the other commentators here are generous, and this contributes to the effectiveness of the blog, as well as its popularity.

[Alex]

Nick, I like your analogy, but I have one that perhaps makes it even clearer. And since the World Cup is on, it's a football one:

* If a forward shoots, and the ball travels towards the top corner of the goal, and the goalkeeper stands completely still in the middle of the goal (even though he could've dived and saved it), did the goalkeeper "cause" the goal?

I don't know about you, but this seems like an odd use of the word "cause" to me. I tried to look for a substantive discussion over at the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, but I couldn't find anything.

It gets even more bizarre when you think of it like this:

* At time t, Object A does action P which results in situation X at time t+2. At time t+1 Object B does action Q. If however, B had done action R, then X would not have resulted, instead Y would have. Did B therefore "cause" X? No, since (i) removing B completely would have still resulted in X and (ii) B was just following the laws of physics and had no choice but to do B. You follow?

But anyway to say the Fed "caused" the recession seems wrong to me, particularly when you compare it to what Ben Bernanke said to Milton Friedman:

"Regarding the Great Depression. You're right, we did it. We're very sorry. But thanks to you, we won't do it again."

That time, the Fed reduced the money supply to stay on the gold standard. That's causation in my book.

But, ahem, this is a long way off topic.

[Alex]

"B was just following the laws of physics and had no choice but to do B"

That should be "but to do Q".

[the_iron_troll]

I loved that Hayek essay, Nick. Fantastic post.