[IP] Re: The Economic Crisis and its Implications for The Science of E

Begin forwarded message:

From: Robert Atkinson <rca53@columbia.edu>

Date: April 26, 2009 10:43:11 AM EDT

To: David Farber <dave@farber.net>

Subject: Re: [IP] The Economic Crisis and its Implications for The Science of Economics

>..."Economic Manhattan Project", a global effort to develop sophisticated quantitative models and tools that could be used to guide us out of the financial/economic current crisis.

Or, more likely guide us over the cliff into a real disaster. What hubris. Didn’t the Russians, Germans, Chinese and others try this sort of central planning in the last century, with catastrophic results for everyone? “We’ll get it right this time” isn’t too comforting. Why not just fix the few obvious problems and let people muddle through with their liberty? That has demonstrably worked in the past.

Bob

On 4/25/09 6:58 PM, "David Farber" <dave@farber.net> wrote:

Prior to any Economic Manhattan project maybe a study of Ethical behavior in the financial area would be more profitable djf

Begin forwarded message:

From: Dennis Allison <drallison@gmail.com>
Date: April 25, 2009 3:22:35 PM EDT
To: Dave Farber <dave@farber.net>
Cc: allison@stanford.edu
Subject: The Economic Crisis and its Implications for The Science of Economics

For IP if you think it worthy:

Dave,

I'd like to call the attention of IP readers to an interdisciplinary conference on The Economic Crisis and its Implications for The Science of Economics being held in Toronto May 1-4 at the Perimeter Institute and to a talk being given in the EE Computer Systems Colloquium at Stanford this Wednesday, April 29th. Both are related to the current financial crisis and what we might do, as scientists and engineers, to help resolve the situation.

CONFERENCE:

For more information on the conference.

http://www.perimeterinstitute.ca/en/Events/The_Economic_Crisis_and_Implications_for_Science/The_Economic_Crisis_and_its_Implications_for_The_Science_of_Economics/

Registration is required (seating is limited) but there is no charge for the event.

From the Conference Abstract:

Concerns over the current financial situation are giving rise to a need to evaluate the very mathematics that underpins economics as a predictive and descriptive science. A growing desire to examine economics through the lens of diverse scientific methodologies - including physics and complex systems - is making way to a meeting of leading economists and theorists of finance together with physicists, mathematicians, biologists and computer scientists in an effort to evaluate current theories of markets and identify key issues that can motivate new directions for research. Perimeter Institute was suggested to be the gathering point and conference organizers plan to foster a very careful, dispassionate discussion, in an atmosphere governed by the modesty and open mindedness that characterizes the scientific community.

COLLOQUIUM:

One of the conference organizers, Eric Weinstein, will be speaking in the Stanford EE Computer Systems Colloquium (http://ee380.stanford.edu) Wednesday 4:15-5:30PM Pacific. He will argue for the need to have a broadly based, interdisciplinary "Economic Manhattan Project", a global effort to develop sophisticated quantitative models and tools that could be used to guide us out of the financial/economic current crisis.

Eric's lecture will be given before a live audience in the Gates Computer Science Building (room B1) on the Stanford Campus; this is a public lecture and anyone is welcome to attend. The lecture will be available over the Internet by webcast in real time (questions via Twitter) and will be available for on-demand viewing from the Colloquium website about an hour or two following completion of the talk. In time, Colloquium lectures are available on YouTube and iTunes and other distribution channels. See the website for details.

Dennis Allison
Computer Systems Laboratory
Stanford University

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