George Stigler
This article is a stub. You can help us by editing this page and expanding it.Another [new economic theory] has to do with bilateral trade and the geometry of markets, culminating eventually in a model of humans in which they're allowed to change their tastes. Now, it sounds very strange to say that economic theory falls apart when human beings change their tastes. But since at least the late 1970s, we've had an excuse in place in the work of Becker and Stigler, that allows us to make assumptions about human beings that are known to be wildly untrue. And the way out, strangely enough, is through differential geometry, the differential geometry of markets. So that's something that I think we're going to be very interested in bringing to you. I don't know whether the idea of geometric markets is something that can be easily explained to a mass audience. But this theory of geometric marginalism is, in fact, a starter theory, that, if that is successful, might allow us to discuss an even more profound attempt, which would be this concept that I've called Geometric Unity.
- Eric Weinstein on The Portal Episode 2
On X
"Economists could not understand how so fine an economist as Coase could make so obvious a mistake." -UChicago peer reviews Coase [Stigler]
@ubfid Hi Fergus. The Stigler quotes come from the 'Eureka!' chapter in his autobiography: http://bit.ly/CoaseStigler