The author has been described by News Ltd as an "iconoclast", "Svengali", a pollie's "economist muse", and "pungently accurate". Fairfax says he is a "Renaissance man" and "one of Australia’s most respected analysts." Stephen Koukoulas concludes that he is "85% right", and "would make a great Opposition leader." Terry McCrann claims the author thinks "‘nuance’ is a trendy village in the south of France", but can be "scintillating" when he thinks "clearly". The ACTU reckons he’s "an enigma wrapped in a Bloomberg terminal, wrapped in some apparently well-honed abs."

Monday, November 1, 2010

Gavyn Davies warns about using economic anecdotes

Gavyn, who was formerly chief economist of Goldman, and chairman of the BBC, offers these words of caution...

"For most of my life in macroeconomics, I have tended to be very dismissive of anecdotes from the world of business. They run the risk of exaggerating the importance of specific experiences in a small number of companies, and behavioural finance warns us that human beings tend to over-estimate the significance of events which happen directly to them, rather than to others. I also believe that business people are no better than anyone else at predicting the economy (which in my mind is tit-for-tat, since they certainly believe that economists cannot do it either)."
at 6:03 AM