I prefer viewing economic models from a CS-math pov rather than a purely economic one. It’s personal, maybe because I started with a CS major and leaned more toward math during my first two college years. Even for Econ classes, I lean towards a more math-based interpretation; it’s faster and leads to better exam results, making it more time-efficient in terms of GPA outcome. Does that make sense?
One gripe I have is that in Econ classes and textbooks, they often toss in sparse illustrations, like a simple two-axes graph with less than three points and say, “Here’s what our model implies!” While the simplicity of representing complex theories on such a basic graph is impressive, I think there are better ways to present and explain these models.
In many economics papers, there are lengthy explanations of the economic implications of the model, which can be quite verbose. But when they finally arrive at the mathematical formulation, the actual modeling part, you found that the model is often stylized.
I know that many renowned economists have solid math backgrounds. And, sometimes, they’re certainly showing off in their papers. Too often, for places that involve non-trivial maths, they just skip details and jump to the answers. Sometimes, I’ve read the conclusions or know the proof tricks, so I just smile, frown, understand, and move on. But there are times I’ve spent entire afternoons stuck on one page. It’s very frustrating.
Not those great economists’ fault though, you can blame it all on my OCD.
In conclusion, some authors often assume everyone gets the math and skip it. Maybe economists take their own math for granted? Worse yet, I’ve seen people (even famous professors, like the one whose textbook is under my computer now) write in their papers:
We’ll let the reader verify this.
Seriously? Come on!
