Thursday, December 13, 2007

Blog debates/comments

I have been commenting on Andrew Gelman's blog entry on Mankiw and Weinzierl's height taxation paper. I've been wondering if this is the best medium for having a conversation. My reading of blog comments in the past have been that it's not the best or most effective way and I'm falling into this pattern. My problem is that (and with other blog commenters in general) I didn't read Gelman's entry carefully enough and ended up repeating him and myself. In any case, I also didn't seem to make my case very clearly. The differences hinge on the following the difference between how economists think and how political scientists think and right now I don't know what the difference is. At worst, I think I failed in communicating clearly.

Update: It sounds to me like political scientists like Andrew Gelman would never consider the kind of exercise that M&W considers. This type of exercises I think are typical of many economics models.

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