professor Tribini forskningschef i CEPOS Henrik Christoffersen
”Finanskrisen er ikke et rent økonomisk spørgsmål – men involverer også vigtige aspekter af erkendelses- og informationsteori. Strømmen af informationer mellem individer er fuld af strukturelle fælder, der udgør motoren i kriser og kan udnyttes af kyniske spillere.”
Økonomistudiet, som en gang kunne love sine kandidater guld, grønne skove og fede stillinger kan i dag, lige som mange andre udpræget konjunkturbestemte, markedsorienterede uddannelser ikke afsætte kandidaterne.
Nu er økonomerne jo en ”delt branche”, hvor langt de fleste skal guide enkelte virksomheder eller organisationer igennem samfundets og markedets oprørte hav med bundlinjen som guideline mens makroøkonomerne udpeger kursen på samfundsplan for os alle sammen.
At drive et samfund som en butik er god skik, når man har ført nationerne ud dertil hvor lånemarkedet og ikke parlamenterne bestemmer den politik som skal føres.
Altså skal der ikke længere investeres i ting og aktiviteter som er samfundsgavnlige, men kun i det som vil give afkast i form af penge til investorerne.
For et være ganske konkret:
Mange vil i dag gå ind for, at vi på længere sigt skiller os af med en energisektor, som er baseret på fossil brændsel. Men kan man konsekvent arbejde frem imod dette mål i disse år? Nej – fordi: når krisen forsætter vil olie- og kulpriserne på grundlag af den faldende efterspørgsel igen komme ned i et mere ”realistisk” leje og derfor vil der ikke være afkast fra alternativ energiproduktion. Det bliver igen ”det eneste økonomisk fornuftige” at fyre kul og olie af – som vi plejer.
Så kunne det offentlige vel træde til og gennemføre den fornuftige omlægning af energisektoren alligevel – nej – der er ingen penge – dem har vi reddet bankerne med – som dog ikke er reddet endnu alligevel – og politikerne skider i bukserne hvis de overvejer at overhøre alle borgerlige makroøkomers ramaskrig: ”Offentlig styring af investeringerne (f.eks. i energisektoren) vil bringe os i samme situation som Grækerne...” - og det har de så ret i - fordi hvem vil låne penge til nogen som vil gøre det fornuftige, rigtige – i stedet for det som lover mest afkast?
Med lidt ”fleksibilitet” ville det på disse betingelser være bedst at omlægge dansk landbrug til valmue- og cocadyrkning – det skulle nok kunne betale sig og ville også passe fint til den almene mentale tilstand i de højere politiske luftlag, hvor fornuften skal holdes på afstand med illusionsnumre for at kunne tage sig selv og ens egne desperate armsving for ultimo ratio.
Der er dog andre end økonomerne som har noget at sige om vores økonomiske suppedas – også noget interessant – her er et bud: ”Nedtur” af Vincent F. Hendricks/Jan Lundorff Rasmussen (http://www.vince-inc.com/vincent/?p=1059)
DOWNFALL!
The Financial Crisis and Philosophy
Vincent F. Hendricks/Jan Lundorff Rasmussen
english abstract:
A New Book on the Financial Crisis Philosophically Explained
A financial system consists of products and players. Thus, if it goes bad, as it has during the financial crisis, it may have something to do with products, but it may also have something to do with us and the way we reason – individually and collectively.
Only one species has configured a financial system and decided to live according to the principles such a system instils. The configuration and decision is particular to man. No such system among ants, dolphins or hippos. Although devised by rational man, man is not necessarily rational in that system – especially not when agents interact collectively.
Besides stocks, auctions, hedge funds, a financial market is characterized by group deliberation, decision and action. Central to deliberation, decision and action is information. Information acquisition and processing are essential fabrics in rational deliberation, decision and action, which in turn should amount to the rational interaction among members of a group or the financial system as such. Epistemology, information technology and computer science all of a sudden become acutely relevant to the study of a financial system.
The cement of any deliberating group or deciding body is the rational interaction among its members. Rational interaction between agents is determined by the knowledge they have, their preferences, the arguments they can muster for their opinions, decisions and actions in economic matters and elsewhere. Recent studies in philosophy, social psychology, social science, economics, computer science and jurisprudence show that concepts dear to collective thought since the Enlightenment, like rational decision, informed action, truthful justification, etc., are sensitive to the way in which agents or members of a group process their information in order to rationally interact.
Communication and intelligent information processing are needed to make informed decisions, carry out important actions, hold true beliefs, all of which are cornerstones in a sound financial system.
New empirical findings, especially from social psychology and economics, demonstrate that one may derail or manipulate otherwise rational agents in a democratic process or setting with exactly information.
Derailing deciding agents with too little information is referred to as pluralistic ignorance; derailing with too much information is known as informational cascades; using information selection may lead to belief polarization and finally information presentation may be responsible for framing effects. Thus, phenomena up until now primarily studied by social psychology may actually be classified as information phenomena characterized by the nature of information involved in manipulating agents.
Information phenomena Nature of information
Pluralistic ignorance ... manipulation via ... too little information
Informational cascades ... manipulation via ... too much information
Framing effects ... manipulation via ... information presentation
Belief polarization ... manipulation via ... information selection
Such phenomena, and many others like them, are potentially dangerous to a financial system, since they may tap into the way in which “informed” agents make “rational” decisions, perform “rational” actions and hold “rational” beliefs.
By way of example, pluralistic ignorance among members of company boards have proved robust while for instance settling on which new sales strategy to implement. Everybody thinks that everybody else subscribes to a certain idea (say a particular sales strategy) or norm even though everybody privately rejects the norm or idea. A strategy may be implemented even though everybody privately thinks it’s a bad idea, but publically “believes” incorrectly that everybody else subscribes to the idea.
The reason is that when decision makers lack sufficient information to reach a qualified decisions it may be rational to imitate what others do. If everybody involved do so at the same time, all receive the information that there either is no problem or that all are in agreement. The truth may be that they all agree on the opposite, but nobody wants to flag so accordingly due to the social sanctions of a minority report. Similar reasoning may be involved in boom thinking about which stock to acquire next.
Echo-chambers and polarization effects have likewise been shown to be robust phenomena among board members or directors. While settling for acquisition premiums directors and chairmen tend to rely on previous experiences related to fixing the acquisition premium price. Prior to the board meeting the influential may have thought of arguments settling for a high acquisition prize based on their experience. Recent research in social psychology and management show that such arguments have unequal strong weight during deliberation. As a matter of fact, the arguments in favour of high premiums become even stronger during deliberation while the arguments against are marginalized. The same goes if starting out with low premiums prior to board meeting deliberation.
While pluralistic ignorance is the result of the quantity of information needed for proper decision, not enough information, polarization is the result of quality of the information; decision makers fix attention on certain information, and disregard other information. That is, manipulation via information selection.
A final example: Too much information may also be the source of manipulation and irrational group decision. Seeing many people doing or saying the same may be overwhelming evidence to the effect of disregarding one’s own point of view or assessment of the situation. That’s how bubbles come about in markets, they are based on informational cascades.
A host of other phenomena like the ones just described are part of the infostorm responsible for derailing otherwise rational agents while deliberating, deciding and acting in concert in financial matters. The reason for the financial crisis largely includes us, thus epistemology is a central player in understanding the Downfall! (in Danish, Nedtur!) The new book is exactly about systematically understanding and explaining the financial crisis from a philosophical perspective.
De studerende jurister og økonomer er så bange for at blive arbejdsløse, at de overvejer at udskyde at blive færdige med deres uddannelse. Det viser en undersøgelse, som DJØF har foretaget blandt 700 kandidatstuderende på blandt andet Aalborg, Aarhus og København universitet.
