Saturday, November 16, 2013

Modest Proposals

I’d like to look at a specific question raised by the discussion of private returns and social value, namely: can Wall Street, in its present form, be justified?



That is, does the share of income flowing to corporations and professional workers in the financial sector reflect their marginal contribution to the total value of social output, so that, if their work ceased to be done and their skills were allocated elsewhere, we would all be worse off?

Source. 

4 comments:

  1. 1) No.
    2) Excellent counterfactual, but my guess is since the brokers and traders all disappeared with HFT, and the quants failed to ask the right questions, they would supply only mediocre or null gains in more STEMy pursuits.

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  2. It's there John, I cite my sources with a hyperlink labeled "Source" at the bottom of every post.

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    Replies
    1. Sorry, will delete prior comment. But I find Quiggin is right on.

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