Merged A Thread for AlexPontik to Explain his Ideas

psionl0 said:
He probably kept some sort of running ledger in his head or relied on his advisors to know who the slackers were.
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What makes it complex is the evolution of the concept of individual ownership and rights. The evolution of sexual division of labour would see gathered food transferred between males and females but there would be no concept of future ongoing debtors or creditors between those same people.

This is sort of related to equity theory in psychology. A chimpanzee would complain if he had 2 bananas and could see every other chimp had 10 bananas, but the same chimp would not complain if he only had one banana and all other chimps also only had one banana.

I actually had to study this for tax modelling. The ATO improves cheaper voluntary compliance if it promotes public knowledge that it ruthlessly prosecutes and punishes tax evaders.
 
Matthew Ellard said:
What makes it complex is the evolution of the concept of individual ownership and rights. The evolution of sexual division of labour would see gathered food transferred between males and females but there would be no concept of future ongoing debtors or creditors between those same people.
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The origins of money and trade are shrouded in secrecy.

You are right that any rights and obligations that existed would have been between individuals and the ruler rather than between individuals and individuals (unless the ruler mediated). That doesn't mean that future obligations didn't exist in those times and it is quite probable that individuals made promises to each other even if they had to be informal.
 
psionl0 said:
You are right that any rights and obligations that existed would have been between individuals and the ruler rather than between individuals and individuals (unless the ruler mediated). That doesn't mean that future obligations didn't exist in those times and it is quite probable that individuals made promises to each other even if they had to be informal.
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I simply don't know. One hint is that before grain harvesting in the fertile crescent, 9,000 years ago, people and small tribes generally didn't have surpluses to account for in the future, and secondly, even today subsistence gatherers don't have exact number systems for greater than three.

I think that we then have to consider what a modern concept of a slave, can or can't own. Can a Roman slave, who can't own property have creditors? What rights did people think they had 30,000 years ago?

It's really really hard to apply modern concepts to prehistory.:)
 
Matthew Ellard said:
The statistical methods use hypothetical formulas to predict economic results.
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Not sure what you mean by hypothetical formulas. Econometricians estimate parameters of mathematical models and test hypotheses about those models. Pretty much what's done in other areas of statistics, although more narrowly (and possibly more deeply) applied.
 
Startz said:
Not sure what you mean by hypothetical formulas. Econometricians estimate parameters of mathematical models and test hypotheses about those models. Pretty much what's done in other areas of statistics, although more narrowly (and possibly more deeply) applied.
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Because all formulas are estimations and not actual "counting".

It's like how in auditing, application of financial formulas may indicate levels of inherent risk suggesting, what areas are examined in more detail.
 
Matthew Ellard said:
Because all formulas are estimations and not actual "counting".

It's like how in auditing, application of financial formulas may indicate levels of inherent risk suggesting, what areas are examined in more detail.
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I don't suppose I would disagree with that, but I'm not sure I understand the implication. The value of the speed of light is also an estimation, albeit a more accurate one than most economic numbers.
 
Startz said:
I don't suppose I would disagree with that, but I'm not sure I understand the implication. The value of the speed of light is also an estimation, albeit a more accurate one than most economic numbers.
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You can test the speed of light for its sole empirical data. You cannot test the entire economy for one economic ratio, suggested by a sample, or for one narrow economic formula, for example all alternative substitutions as price rises.
 
Matthew Ellard said:
You can test the speed of light for its sole empirical data. You cannot test the entire economy for one economic ratio, suggested by a sample, or for one narrow economic formula, for example all alternative substitutions as price rises.
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Well, my understanding is that the speed of light depends on the transmission medium by a small amount (and if someone who knows more physics than I do--almost everyone here--wants to correct this, please do.)

Is the point that empirical relations in economics are sometimes harder to figure out than empirical relations in physics, for example?
 
Startz said:
Is the point that empirical relations in economics are sometimes harder to figure out than empirical relations in physics, for example?
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You are only testing and measuring one factor with regards to the speed of light.

In economics you are making a hypothesis based on a sample (econometrics) that does not actually show you what all the variables could be. If I increase the price of bananas and households substitute something else for bananas, I don't know if that is apples, oranges, kiwifruit, blueberries or the household simply stopped buying fruit. I would have to count all the alternatives, rather than simply ask a demand curve question about bananas.

I think that physics has basic fixed rules which narrows the alternatives to combinations, whereas economics is both evolving and has no fixed combination rules. :)

I now have to be more careful because, as physics and economics are very different fields, common words have very different meanings in the different fields. "elasticity" is a good example.

(I'm a semi retired entertainment tax lawyer with an economics background)
 
Matthew Ellard said:
You are only testing and measuring one factor with regards to the speed of light.

In economics you are making a hypothesis based on a sample (econometrics) that does not actually show you what all the variables could be. If I increase the price of bananas and households substitute something else for bananas, I don't know if that is apples, oranges, kiwifruit, blueberries or the household simply stopped buying fruit. I would have to count all the alternatives, rather than simply ask a demand curve question about bananas.

I think that physics has basic fixed rules which narrows the alternatives to combinations, whereas economics is both evolving and has no fixed combination rules. :)

I now have to be more careful because, as physics and economics are very different fields, common words have very different meanings in the different fields. "elasticity" is a good example.

(I'm a semi retired entertainment tax lawyer with an economics background)
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I might quibble over some of this, but I agree with your general thrust. Still not quite sure what all this suggests. if it's just for general educational purposes, that seems like a good thing.
 
Well, once I saw a civilization reduced to employees and employers, I thought we were heading towards a Marxist philosophy of theft of labor and undoing the accumulation of wealth in the hands of owners. But this is not where this went. I have no idea where it did go, however.
 
I once threw a condom filled with stale lasagna at my neighbors backyard barbeque who were blasting country music. But that was not where it went. I have no idea where it did go, either.
 
Startz said:
I might quibble over some of this, but I agree with your general thrust. Still not quite sure what all this suggests. if it's just for general educational purposes, that seems like a good thing.
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It's hard because I'm trying to combine auditing logic and economics logic. In essence, if you really want to know what happened you measure every individual transaction again. However that would be prohibitively expensive and you would have to freeze all transactions while you were measuring to determine the volume in a period. Therefore all you can do is apply models and introduce assumptions based on other sample inputs.

Auditing is basically a variant of risk management. Economic and financial ratios are a variety of derived formulas that can be applied in sets that should come up with similar ratios to other scenarios. If the similarities don't appear, then there is inherent risk and the auditor or economist must look deeper.

(Generally it is very boring work but if you can't show you followed all the recommended steps, you will get sued by someone. That's why no one wants to become an auditor ) :)
 
Matthew Ellard said:
It's hard because I'm trying to combine auditing logic and economics logic. In essence, if you really want to know what happened you measure every individual transaction again. However that would be prohibitively expensive and you would have to freeze all transactions while you were measuring to determine the volume in a period. Therefore all you can do is apply models and introduce assumptions based on other sample inputs.
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Do you happen to have an example where (a) some statistical test is used to conduct an audit and (b) where the data is shareable? I've been looking for one of those for years.
 
I appreciate the links, but I didn't see any obvious downloadable data. I probably should have been more clear. I'm looking for downloadable data that can be used in a regression.
 
Startz said:
I appreciate the links, but I didn't see any obvious downloadable data. I probably should have been more clear. I'm looking for downloadable data that can be used in a regression.
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I don't quite understand what you are looking for but, if it's tables of data you can down load, there are a few thousand for Canada at least at https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/en/type/data

Regress away.
 
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