Most of the assumptions made in economic models conceal sources of profit.
They dont appear to be there to simplify complexity because they simulate situations that have never and will never be approximated (never been perfect competition or information, never will be).
> Most of the assumptions made in economic models conceal sources of profit
This is wildly inaccurate. A huge amount of economics is focussed on profit. For obvious reasons.
> never been perfect competition or information, never will be
Frictionless surfaces are mostly a fiction, too. That doesn’t mean calculating the expected outcome in a frictionless condition is useless. If the deviance is more than you’d expect from friction, that’s informative.
Unlike physics, a lot of people think their undergrad 101 course plus skimming the Economist an economist themselves makes. It’s a common hubris, albeit one unusually common in tech. (Disclaimer: I’m not an economist. But I know the boundaries of my circle of competence in this.)
>This is wildly inaccurate. A huge amount of economics is focussed on profit. For obvious reasons.
As an example there are countless studies looking at the relationship between the minimum wage and employment and off the top of my head I can think of maybe 2 off the top of my head that measure the relationship between the minimum wage and profit.
For obvious reasons. The same reasons.
It's not a great way to get ahead in your scientific profession to point out things which make the people with the money and the power uncomfortable - Galileo discovered that one.
They dont appear to be there to simplify complexity because they simulate situations that have never and will never be approximated (never been perfect competition or information, never will be).
It's unlike, say, physics in this respect.