Systems Architecture, Kabuki Capitalism, and the Economic Manhattan Project:

In which Eric Weinstein as proposer of the EMP accepts an invitation to debates the public Edge.org challenge issued by Prof. Paul Romer on the latter's home campus.

Eric Weinstein
Natron Group

BACKGROUND

In the December 11th, 2008, John Brockman's Edge.org published as part of Edge 269 the article

CAN SCIENCE HELP SOLVE THE ECONOMIC CRISIS? By Mike Brown, Stuart Kauffman, Zoe-Vonna Palmrose and Lee Smolin

Eric Weinstein was not a named author but participated in the discussion. Brockman summarized:

In the near-term, Eric Weinstein has spoken about an "economic Manhattan project". This means getting a group of good scientists together, some who know a lot about economics and finance, and others, who have proved themselves in other areas of science but bring fresh minds and perspectives to the challenge, to focus on developing a scientific conceptualization of economic theory and modeling that is reliable enough to be called a science. Paul Romer, a Professor of Economics in the Stanford Business School, in his commentary for the Edge articles offered the following challenge:

... [A] key recommendation is to recruit some "good" scientists (their modifier, not mine; see the second paragraph from the pull quote) from other fields. I guess that these outsiders are supposed to purge economics and finance of the aforementioned ideology and failed assumptions. But before we put up money for an "economic Manhattan Project," wouldn't it make sense to ask if there is any evidence to support the basic claim here--that more theory, developed by people who don't have domain experience, is the key to scientific progress in macroeconomics and finance?

As originally conceived, this talk was to be a debate on the merits of an Economic Manhattan Project. Paul Romer was invited to particiate but declined to participate.

FURTHER READING

FORTHCOMING CONFERENCE

The Economic Crisis and Implications for Science and its Implications for The Science of Economics, May 1-4 2009, Toronto, Canada.

Slides:

There is no downloadable version of the slides for this talk available at this time.

About the speaker:

ERIC R. WEINSTEIN is a Mathematician, and Economist who is a Principal at the Natron Group in Manhattan. He speaks and publishes on a variety of topics including, gauge theory, immigration, the market for elite labor, management of financial risk and the incentivizing of risk taking in science. (from edge.org) Contact information: Eric Weinstein Natron Group, New York City WWW: http://www.eric-weinstein.net<\a> Videos: