IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/tpr/jeurec/v1y2003i2-3p272-300.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Alfred Marshall Lecture: Using and Abusing Economic Theory

Author

Listed:
  • Paul Klemperer

    (Nuffield College, Oxford University,)

Abstract

Economic theory is often abused in practical policy-making. There is frequently excessive focus on sophisticated theory at the expense of elementary theory; too much economic knowledge can sometimes be a dangerous thing. Too little attention is paid to the wider economic context, and to the dangers posed by political pressures. Superficially trivial distinctions between policy proposals may be economically significant, while economically irrelevant distinctions may be politically important. I illustrate with some disastrous government auctions, but also show the value of economic theory. (JEL: A11, B4, D44, L96) Copyright (c) 2003 The European Economic Association.

Suggested Citation

  • Paul Klemperer, 2003. "Alfred Marshall Lecture: Using and Abusing Economic Theory," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 1(2-3), pages 272-300, 04/05.
    • Handle: RePEc:tpr:jeurec:v:1:y:2003:i:2-3:p:272-300
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1542-4774/issues
    File Function: link to full text
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Alexander Teytelboym & Shengwu Li & Scott Duke Kominers & Mohammad Akbarpour & Piotr Dworczak, 2021. "Discovering Auctions: Contributions of Paul Milgrom and Robert Wilson," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 123(3), pages 709-750, July.
    2. Espinosa, Miguel & Forero, German & Villaneda, Felipe, 2011. "The practice of the auction theory: The Colombian case," MPRA Paper 31150, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Dirk Engelmann & Veronika Grimm, 2009. "Bidding Behaviour in Multi-Unit Auctions - An Experimental Investigation," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 119(537), pages 855-882, April.
    4. Luciano De Castro, 2010. "Affiliation, Equilibrium Existence and Revenue Ranking of Auctions," Discussion Papers 1530, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science.
    5. Luciano I. de Castro, 2009. "Affiliation and Dependence in Economic Models," Discussion Papers 1479, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science.
    6. Noe, Thomas H. & Rebello, Michael & Wang, Jun, 2012. "Learning to bid: The design of auctions under uncertainty and adaptation," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 74(2), pages 620-636.
    7. Gary Madden & Ismail Saglam & Inayat Hussain, 2015. "Spectrum auction designs and revenue variations," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(17), pages 1748-1763, April.
    8. de Frutos, María-Ángeles & Fabra, Natalia, 2012. "How to allocate forward contracts: The case of electricity markets," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 56(3), pages 451-469.
    9. Fabra, Natalia & de Frutos, Maria-Angeles, 2008. "On the Impact of Forward Contract Obligations in Multi-Unit Auctions," CEPR Discussion Papers 6756, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    10. E. schokkaert, 2004. "The Microeconomics of Market Regulation A Critical Perspective from the other Social Sciences?," Review of Business and Economic Literature, KU Leuven, Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB), Review of Business and Economic Literature, vol. 0(2), pages 209-216.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • A11 - General Economics and Teaching - - General Economics - - - Role of Economics; Role of Economists
    • B4 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - Economic Methodology
    • D44 - Microeconomics - - Market Structure, Pricing, and Design - - - Auctions
    • L96 - Industrial Organization - - Industry Studies: Transportation and Utilities - - - Telecommunications

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:tpr:jeurec:v:1:y:2003:i:2-3:p:272-300. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kelly McDougall (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://direct.mit.edu/journals .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.