Preliminary Remarks: “The trouble is not so much that macroeconomists say things that are inconsistent with the facts. The real trouble is that other economists do not care that the macroeconomists do not care about the facts. An indifferent tolerance of obvious error is even more corrosive to science than committed advocacy of error.” From The Trouble with Macroeconomics (Paul Romer)

I do not understand why indifference to error is worse than committed advocacy. Tor an illustration of committed advocacy of error, see postscript below on 70 years of economists’ committed to a fallacious theory. Furthermore, the problem is not confined to macro. Microeconomists are also dogmatically committed to utility maximization, when in fact this hypothesis about consumer behavior is solidly rejected by empirical evidence; see: The Empirical Evidence Against Neoclassical Utility Maximization: A Survey of the Literature

Understanding Macro: The Great Depression

Published in The Express Tribune, February…

Last semester at PIDE, I taught Advanced Microeconomics I, the core M.Phil./Ph.D. course for Micro, using an Islamic approach to both style and content. The entire set of 30 lectures, with videos of lectures, slides/lecture notes, and other relevant reference materials, are available from the website for the course at Advanced Microeconomics (PIDE). This post provides a brief description of the first lecture, followed by a link to a video-recording of it, followed by a more detailed outline, based on the lecture slides.

Brief Description of Lecture: 

This introductory lecture describes how Western approaches to knowledge are drastically different from Islamic approaches. In early 20th Century Western approaches matches Islamic approaches in that both aimed at the development of human beings. However, this dimension of character building, leadership training, recognition of social and civic responsibilities, development of spirit of service, sacrifice, and engagement with communities and world was lost in…

Wo faraib khorda shaheen, jo pala hay kargason mein – usay kya khabar ke kya hai, raho rasme shahbazi
Suppose that Iraqi children learnt the story of the invasion and occupation of Iraq in schools run by Americans. They would learn of the heroism and bravery of the US troops, who made great sacrifices to bring freedom and democracy to Iraq. They gave their lives, and spent trillions in order to educate and civilize the savage terrorists who lived in Iraq. They would learn to admire the US for their humanity, civilization, and technology, and hate their ancestors for their barbarism, terrorist ways, lack of education, and most of all, lack of appreciation for the American culture. They would reject as enemy propaganda stories of US destruction of millions of lives and billions worth of infrastructure in their greedy quest for control of the rich oil resources of Iraq.
Growing…