Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Economics/Assessment

Agricultural economics

I'm upgrading the importance of Agricultural economics from Mid to High. It's an area which is important to both those within the field and the general public. Many universities have specific, separate Agricultural Economics programs. It may be particularly important in places where many people's livelihood is tied closely to agriculture. Plus, it's food! CRETOG8(t/c) 17:36, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. As a high-level subfield of economics I think it's perfectly reasonable that this is of High importance. -FrankTobia (talk) 02:17, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

on Marshallian demand function

I rated Marshallian demand function high and FrankTobia rated it mid. I then rated it back to high because I imagine he only didn't recognize what is often called "the demand function." in college economics classes; as in supply and ______. The concept seems critical to economics to me, but maybe I am missing something obvious about why he rated it mid. Pdbailey (talk) 02:52, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Wait, Marshallian demand function is the same as demand (economics)? I assumed the Marshallian was an instance of a demand function. I agree that supply and demand should be rated High, but I still haven't been convinced on this one. Seems like it's primarily of specialist interest. -FrankTobia (talk) 03:29, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

The Marshallian demand function is technically the same as demand (economics), but has a different emphasis (if a function can have an emphasis). Typically in presenting "demand", we're talking about the demand for a specific good. The Marshallian demand function includes that, but the emphasis is on the selected bundle of goods. So the Marshallian is the generality, and then the demand function we'd normally talk about only includes one price (the rest of the price vector falling into ceteris paribus) and we only look at the resulting quantity for one good in the commodity bundle. So, I think it's Mid. Here's why--technically it's the same, and it's important. Practically, demand is presented to layfolk in the one-commodity version with comments on substitutes and complements (which are part of the Marshallian demand). I think that's good for most purposes, and then when one starts explicitly being concerned with Marshallian demand, one wants to get more technical than the layfolk. CRETOG8(t/c) 03:40, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Describing it another way... I think that people can understand the essence of Marshallian demand without knowing they're learning about Marshallian demand, and without needing to think about stuff like vectors. But I don't think we want to water down the Marshallian demand article itself to do that, since it's addressed elsewhere. CRETOG8(t/c) 04:08, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

That is crazy. I didn't know any of that. Now I'm especially glad to be part of this WikiProject so I can learn about differences like this. I agree with Cretog's assessment, but I want to point out that it rests on the assumption that the importance criteria should use a layperson for our reasonable person standard. I pretty much invented this myself, because it made sense at the time. But we need to see what other editors think. Should relative importance to the layperson should drive WP:ECON's importance assessments? (Side note: supply and demand needs a ton of work) -FrankTobia (talk) 05:09, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Absolutely, mid is the right rating in light of the "lay person"/"technician" article structure. I am an Economics Ph.D. student, but I was a Chemistry major, so I took very few economics courses in college--I have no idea what you learn in college. This is very informative for me too! Pdbailey (talk) 12:00, 18 August 2008 (UTC)

Nobel winners

Some Nobel winners are more influential than others, but I think it's a good guideline that any biography of a Nobel winner is High importance, as is any article which is clearly about the contribution for which a Nobel was won. Thoughts? CRETOG8(t/c) 04:53, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree. Isn't there another economic prize that is considered to be more highly prized amongst economists? I can't remember the name and I might be thinking of another field. We also might want to include that prize, if it does exist. If it doesn't exists, then I don't think we should include it. --Patrick (talk) 05:25, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

There's the John Bates Clark Medal. I'm fuzzier on how that would rank somebody. I'd say they deserve at least Mid, but not sure about High (I really don't know). CRETOG8(t/c) 05:59, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Yep, that's the one. Thanks --Patrick (talk) 04:49, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

On first face I completely agree that Nobel winners should be ranked High at least. Same goes for the John Bates Clark Medal. I say we start assessing that way, and then revisit the topic if anyone sees a Nobel winner they don't think is of High importance. Seems unlikely for the Nobel, but maybe for the John Bates Clark Medal? We'll see. -FrankTobia (talk) 14:09, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Hi all, Cretog8 suggested I make some comment here following some talk over at game theory. Take this in the spirit of Devil's advocacy and perhaps a pinch of salt. I'm not requesting the re-scoring not be done, but am keen to hear what people think about the counter-argument (I now cut an paste comments from elsewhere, forgive the flow and repetition problems). In my very humble opinion, any article explaining research that went towards a Nobel Prize is far higher in importance than the biography of the researcher. Why do I think this is a problem? Just my opinion, but I think things like WP:GA are skewing effort on wikipedia towards Biographies as penalize articles consisting of material beyond the mid-highschool level of difficulty. It seems to me that the vast majority of Category:High-importance Economics articles are biographies. There are 17 articles in the "top" importance category of wikiproject econ, one of which is the Ben Bernanke biography. Surely a list of the 50 most important topics in economics doesn't include the details of his life? If effort in improving articles is going to follow the inportance ranking, then I suggest we rank the subject, per se, higher than the biographies. In wikiproject econ: 2 of 4 FAs, 1 of 2 "A" class articles, and 4 of 8 GAs are biographies. Whereas in physics it is 7 of 28 FA, 1 of 22 "A" class, and 3 of 27 GAs. In biology it is 0 of 7 FAs, and 0 of 4 GAs. I would view that as an indication that those projects are placing a higher premium on documenting the important topics in their area.I'd say, from my skewed perspective, that all Nobel laureates ought to be ranked at least "high" in importance within Wikipedia:WikiProject Biography. I'm kind of conflicted on this point, because (and here I'm following Wikipedia:Version_1.0_Editorial_Team/Release_Version_Criteria#Importance_of_topic as my guide) clearly Biographies of Nobel laureates fulfill the "top" criteria that the "Subject is a must-have for a good encyclopedia" and yet, I see them as failing the "high" criteria for Econ, or Game theory, that the "Subject contributes a depth of knowledge" about Econ or Game theory per se, but seem more to meet the "Mid" criteria that the "Subject fills in more minor details". So for that reason I think Bios in general (I'm willing to admit the Nobellists are a special case that tends run against my argument) are "mid" level within the subject area, but "top" within Biographies. Again, I only think this matters because these criteria determine what is included in projects like Wikipedia 1.0. It would be a shame if the vast majority of Game Theory articles included in that were merely Biographies (again I think this bias comes from far more from downgrading the "quality" ratings on articles pitched above the grade 9 level than from importance ratings, but I think these things get correlated in practice...) OK, that's the end of my little rant. I won't go reverting any such changes to the importance of biographies, I just thought I'd put in my 2c against the disproportionate proliferation of biographies in general (while not meaning to imply that these aren't exceptionally encyclopedic biographies) and you can count me as an official neutral (not an "opposed") on changing all Nobel laureates' bios to "High" importance within WP Econ or WP Game Theory. Best regards, Pete.Hurd (talk) 17:20, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Pete makes a good argument here. Morphh ^(talk) 17:29, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

I agree these are good arguments, although I lean against agreeing overall. I'm also a relative Wikipedia novice, so my newbieness certainly affects my perceptions. First, I would agree that for these projects topics are more important than people--I wouldn't rank any bios Top within these Wikiprojects (well, maybe Adam Smith and Karl Marx, but I'm not even sure about them). I think ranking bios High has to do with creating a generalist encyclopedia rather than a specialist reference source. The people are often the face of the ideas. After seeing A Beautiful Mind or hearing someone talk about how great Hayek was, lots of people won't know what the ideas are to look for, but a well-written biography gives them an entry point to discover ideas and a handle to mentally organize them.

I agree (and I suggested above) that any articles which are clearly about the ideas which won the Nobel should also be (at least) High. Sometimes that's really clear-cut, and sometimes it's not. I also agree that it would be very unfortunate if a bio made it in to a collection, but the ideas didn't. CRETOG8(t/c) 20:24, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Here is what I consider to be one interesting guy who wrote extensively also on economics...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Soddy

Frederick Soddy - and yes he won the Noble prize... but not for economics. His Wealth, virtual wealth and debt. The solution of the economic paradox (1926) is still considered a classic. Notable awards, Nobel Prize for Chemistry (1921) skip sievert (talk) 01:23, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Pete does have an interesting argument here. First I just want to clarify a minor point regarding the ratios of high-quality articles that are biographies. I don't think it's correct to draw the conclusion that WikiProject Economics places more emphasis on biographies. Our first collaboration has been on Adam Smith; the other high-quality articles are the result of other editors' work, and the articles (like Harold Innis for example) just so happened to be under the purview of WP:ECON.

I've been trying to think up counter arguments to the above, and I've come up with a few, though I'm not sure I'm fond of any of them. This inspection leads me to believe that we shouldn't have a blanket "Nobel laureates are High importance" guideline, but instead make sure each person is sufficiently important to economics. But conversely I don't think that just because some area of research earned an economist a Nobel prize means it's of High importance. This brings me to my next point...

I think part of Pete's critique can be reframed as a critique of the "economics for the layperson" basis for the importance criteria. I personally like it (which makes sense since I pulled it out of thin air). As an example counter argument, it is conceivable that learning about an economic theory through an article about its progenitor would be much more accessible to a lay person. Whereas general equilibrium (currently rated Mid, not sure if I agree) might only add a depth of understanding in the field, the article on Kenneth Arrow provides the lay reader with some context for the discovery.

That sounds weak though. If anyone can attack the "economics for the layperson" idea, please have at it. -FrankTobia (talk) 04:01, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Well ... you asked for it. Assuming people are stupid .. (lay person) (Laity) is probably not a good idea. skip sievert (talk) 04:07, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Heh, strong assumption. I can't argue with that :) -FrankTobia (talk) 04:18, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Project banner template links

How's that for a useless section title? Anyway, the project banner we put in talk pages has links for assessment and importance scales, but both go the Wikipedia 1.0 guidelines, rather than the project guidelines. I'm not sure which is appropriate (or how to change it). CRETOG8(t/c) 04:57, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

It's was a holdover since we didn't have assessment page when it was created. I'll change it. Thanks for pointing that out. --Patrick (talk) 05:00, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Y Done --Patrick (talk) 05:09, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! CRETOG8(t/c) 05:13, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

I tweaked it a bit so that both bold links go to WP:ECON/A, and the ones that say "importance scale" and "assessment scale" redirect to the appropriate subheadings. Not sure if this is what we want, but I didn't see a reason for both links (the bold and the "assessment") to go to the same place. -FrankTobia (talk) 14:26, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

constrained optimization of importance

At Talk:Hicksian demand function, Morphh, FrankTobia and I started speculating on limiting the number of articles in each class as a way of disciplining us to make the hard decisions. Frank suggested as a starting point 30 Top and 150 High class articles.

I kinda like this idea in adding discipline. Here's things I don't like about it:

1. This is Wikipedia, so any such constraint is inevitably a soft constraint. We can't force people to follow the rule.
2. If a more-casual editor wants to upgrade the classification of an article, it may well be reasonable for them to do so without hunting for the other article to downgrade.
3. This is just asking for strife as editors fight about which articles qualify.

So, I kinda like the idea, but if we follow it, I'm absolutely not willing to take it very seriously, because my wikistress can't handle it. CRETOG8(t/c) 20:11, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

If there are arbitrary limits, they should at least be flexible. Like, if we wind up deciding that all Nobel laureates are presumptively High (see above), then a binding ceiling on the number of High-rated articles will crowd out non-Nobel winners. On the other hand, it's likely a good way to avoid importance creep. But then, running into the ceiling inevitably means we either need to 1) downgrade another less important article, or 2) come to a consensus that maybe the ceiling was too low. I guess we'll cross this bridge when we get to it. -FrankTobia (talk) 23:01, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

The idea would be to try to write the importance criteria so that the numbers generally fall into the guidelines suggested for each catagory. Examples are also helpful in the scale. Morphh ^(talk) 16:40, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Coming back to this--I'm not ready to go through a massive re-assessment myself, but it's come to mind. As of right now, there are: 20 Top; 256 High; 436 Med; 528 Low; and 208 unassessed articles. This looks like bad proportions, and I'm sure I'm largely to blame. Sorry.

Returning to FrankTobia's suggestion, but tweaking it a little, how about aiming for: 30 Top; 100 High; 333 Med; and the remainder (985) Low? That would require major trimming of High and Med class articles. Without actually trying that trimming, I'm not sure how reasonable these guidelines are, but it might help prioritize. CRETOG8(t/c) 22:22, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

I am up for something like that. It's still my opinion that 150 high would be better, but maybe the correct way to go about this is trying to demote as many articles as possible, and seeing when it starts getting very difficult to shrink the herd any further. -FrankTobia (talk) 00:21, 21 December 2008 (UTC)

In this light, should we reconsider giving Nobel biographies "high" importance? I still like my reasoning from before--that a biography is often the entry point for someone to learn about ideas, but given we'll be needing to make tradeoffs, reducing those bios to "med" will free up some "high" space. CRETOG8(t/c) 05:44, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Hmm. I think it is reasonable we reexamine Nobelists getting a relatively automatic "high". I have not been assessing much at all lately, so how about I come back with my thoughts after I spend a while in the trenches? Hopefully at that point I'll have a better perspective on what's going on. -FrankTobia (talk) 14:30, 22 December 2008 (UTC)

Hotelling's law

I am new to Wikiediting, so maybe I just don't know the norms well enough, but I changed the importance of Hotelling's law from Low to High importance. At the very least, I think it should be changed to mid level. Hotelling's Law is standard fair for most introductory micro-economics classes. It is a simple intuition with a powerful predictive force. It is frequently cited as the explanation for why gas stations bunch together at certain intersections. Furthermore, it is the basis for a lot of intuitions in the disciplines of public choice and political science including the Median voter theory. It is the basis for many more complicated spacial positioning models. --PaperTyler (talk) 05:53, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

I'm not so sure. At first face this looks like a more minor topic, perhaps vital in certain subfields, but if the question is "Would a layperson need to know about this to learn basic economics?" I think the answer is no. I !vote for low, or possibly medium. -FrankTobia (talk) 04:31, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

I have taught both Introductory and Intermediate Micro, and do not remember seeing Hotelling's law in the text books that I used. I only remember seeing it in graduate level texts. I would vote for 'Low'. LK (talk) 06:11, 26 December 2008 (UTC)

'High'. By the 20th century, the industrial revolution had led to an exponential increase in the human consumption of resources. The increase in health, wealth and population was perceived as a simple path of progress. However, in the 1930s economists began developing models of non-renewable resource management (see Hotelling's Rule) and the sustainability of welfare in an economy that uses non-renewable resources (Hartwick's Rule). I would say this is a basic and important bit of information that ties economics to ecology and sustainability issues... and probably later was tied into things like Systems ecology & Environmental economics and Industrial ecology, therefore of high importance. skip sievert (talk) 16:05, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Two points: First, double-check Hotelling's rule--it's different than Hotelling's law. Second, the goal (at least for me and FrankTobia) at the moment is to reduce the number of High and Mid articles, because it's become so crowded there's not a lot of focus or differentiation, so there's inevitably going to be many articles which are important in an absolute sense, but should be rated of Low importance for the sake of the project. I've downgraded Hotelling's law to Mid for the moment, but agree it'll probably wind up Low. (I happen to like Hotelling's law--I think there's a lot of intuition and insight there, but maybe that's of greater importance for game theory and political science than economics.) CRETOG8(t/c) 17:35, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Good points. I conflated the two, and they are very different. Both interesting. skip sievert (talk) 17:47, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Some guidelines for importance ratings

I think we should have some sort of guidelines and some specific examples written down for what makes an article topic 'Top' or 'High' importance, just so that we have some basis for discuss when disagreements occur. Since the consensus above appears to be Nobel winner's biographies and the topics they were working on don't get an automatic 'High', we can't use that as a basis for comparison.

Here's a suggestion for some guidelines (comments & criticisms welcome of course):

• If an introductory or intermediate level economics textbook is likely to have a chapter devoted to the topic, then it is of 'High' or 'Top' importance. eg. Supply and Demand, Inflation.

• If an introductory or intermediate level economics textbook is likely to have a significant discussion of a topic, then it is of 'Mid' or 'High' importance. eg. Sunk cost

• If a topic is unlikely to be discussed in an introductory or intermediate level economics textbook, it should have 'Low' importance (eg. Land value tax), unless it is likely to be a major topic in an advanced economics textbook, in which case it should have a higher rating, eg. Prisoner's Dilemma, Information asymmetry.

LK (talk) 16:12, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

LK, good suggestions. I think that basically matches the guidelines that we currently have, but can help clarify them and make them more concrete. I keep thinking of semi-exceptions, but I think they mostly fall into the "likely to be a major topic in an advanced economics textbook" category (like general equilibrium), so that's OK as well. CRETOG8(t/c) 18:30, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

I think topics that deal with Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) should not be assigned ‘Low’ importance. MMT credibly challenges the established macroeconomic theory taught at all levels of study. It deserves ‘High’ importance IMO. Otherwise the impression conveyed is that it is not worth mentioning as a serious subject. Lobdillj (talk) 13:31, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

Bitcoin

The page on Bitcoin is rated currently Low-importance on Econ's importance scale. I believe it should be moved up to mid, if at least because of its current popularity and novelty of concept (a currency without a central issuer or bank). What does anybody else think? E123 (talk) 03:56, 8 April 2013 (UTC)

@E123: Y Done. Bitcoin was the most popular page tagged for the Economics project - you can see the list at WP:ECON/P (ratings are shown as of the snapshot (Feb 2014)), and is possibly the most notable cryptocurrency. I've also graded Cryptocurrency and Bitcoin network ad Mid importance, and downgraded Dogecoin to low.Jonpatterns (talk) 19:27, 10 March 2014 (UTC)

Influential Books on Economics

Bestselling books, like The World is Flat or Freakonomics, in my opinion, should be categorised as Mid importance. The books are highly influential over the general population and directly shape the general consensus on economics. Comments? Ifly6 (talk) 04:53, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Article Review: Alonso Zagal

Score: C Class The article has been greatly improved by AWilcox2 and S4435978 since the last review. A few aspects of content and style still need to be addressed. Some expert knowledge may be required and considerable editing is needed to close gaps in content.

1) Defined Structure: The article has a clear structure with an appropriate lead section. The most important areas and sections of the topic are identified and explained. However, titles and sections could be organized in a friendlier way. Section 2, “Theory, Testing and Possible uses” can be separated in two different sections. One section exclusively about the Theory and other section the talks about the Testing &Possible Uses. In this way, the reader would be able to clearly distinguish each sub dimension of the topic while also encouraging the editor for further research.

2)Coverage: Overall the article reasonably covers the topic. There are no relevant sections missing. However, there are some obvious omissions specially under the following sections: “History of Personnel Economic”, “Gift Exchange Theory “and “Principal-Agent Problem. Further research and explanations are required. Additionally, some sections are longer than others besides being equally important.

3)Well Written: The article is reasonable well-written. Besides a couple of missing punctuation and the use of capital letter in the bullet points of section 2, the prose contains no grammatical errors. The introduction could be improved (too much “and” in the first part) and doesn’t resume correctly the most important points of the topic.

4) Neutrality: The article represents its content in an appropriately and understandable way. It is written using a neutral perspective without trying to persuade readers with opinions or personal experiences. It is written with as brad an audience in mind as possible. Nevertheless, illustrations should also be included as they could be relevant and useful to the content. Using pictures, diagrams or charts could potentially facilitate the understanding of the readers.

5) References: The article is suitably referenced, with inline citations. It has some reliable sources but more research is required. No controversial material challenged what is cited. No original research. Some sources in “Notes” were not reliable such as blog posts and press materials.

Alonso Zagal — Preceding unsigned comment added by Alonso.zagal (talk • contribs) 10:33, 31 October 2020 (UTC)

Decision Theory

I have upgraded the article on Decision Theory to high importance, because most of the major areas of Decision Theory, like choice under uncertainty and intertemporal choice etc. are taught at undergraduate courses in Economics, and in the manner in which they are usually dealt with in Decision Theory. Decision Theory is also at the core of microeconomic theory. (I interpreted the "be bold" instruction as "first edit and then comment on the assessment page," I hope what I did is fine!) IKHazarika (talk) 17:08, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

Financial economics

Please may I ask that Financial_economics be re-assessed. It's been substantially improved over the last few years, and the C-Class ranking doesn't seem to reflect the current article. Thanks. Fintor (talk) 08:37, 16 February 2022 (UTC)