So what evidence do you have that the economists are fixing the problems created by the sociologists in any meaningful sense?

I confess I don't understand this question. Could you please clarify?

You said earlier that:

I'm glad that the economics faculty spend much of their time thinking of ways to fix the problems caused by the sociology faculty, but it would save everyone time and money if they all went home.

My confusion was over this claim in that it seems to assume that a) sociologists are creating societal problems and b) economists are solving those problems.

But these "institutions" are not laws of nature, they aren't even tangible things - an "institution" is just a description of the way people co-ordinate with each other. So yes, people in developing countries often can't co-ordinate because they have bad institutions, but it would be equally true to say that they can't have good institutions because they don't co-ordinate.

Human behavior is not path independent. Institutions help coordination because prior functioning governments and organizations help people to keep coordinating. Values also come into play: Countries with functioning governments have citizens with more respect for government so they are more likely to cooperate with it an so on.

Apart from the reasons you already mentioned, marketing creates a brand which reduces information costs. This is of course particularly important in a low information market. Spending money to promote your brand is a pre-commitment to provide satisfactory quality products.

This only makes sense in a context where markets are low information and marketing creates actual information and where negative behavior by a brand will have a substantial reduction in sales. In practice, people have strong brand loyalty based on familiarity with logos and the like,. So people will keep buying the same brands not because they are the best but that's because what they've always done. Humans are cognitive misers, and a large part of marketing is hijacking that.

Huh? All of these can result in total utility going down compared to what might happen if one picked a different market equilibrium. How are these not market failures?

Firstly, no-one can "pick" a market equilibrium.

You are missing the point. The point is that there are other stable equilibria that are better off for everyone but issues like networking effects and technological lock-in prevent people from moving off the local maximum.

Secondly, order is defined in the process of its emergence. Thirdly, proof of a possibility and a demonstration of a real-world effect are not the same thing.

What do these two sentences mean?

So every time a business gains on account of departures from the free market, that's a travesty, but every time it loses, that's the way things are supposed to work.

I don't know where you saw a statement that implied that, and I'm curious how you got that sort of idea from what I wrote.

Besides, TBTF isn't an economic problem, this is a political problem. They had too many lobbyists to be allowed to fail, that's all.

There's an argument for that in the case of the car industry, but the economic consensus is that the economy as a whole would have gotten much worse if the banks hadn't been bailed out.

How is it a market failure? It's possible for bundling to reduce consumer surplus, but that's just a straight transfer.

Technological lock-in and network effects again. For example, in the case of Internet Explorer, having it bundled with Windows meant that many people ended up using IE by default, got very used to it, and then it had an advantage compared to other browsers which stayed around (because people then wrote software that needed IE and webpages emphasized looking good in IE). In this context, if the consumers had been given a choice of browsers, it is likely that other browsers, especially Netscape (and later Firefox) would have done much better, and by most benchmarks Netscape was a better browser.

Actually, I think that a "random African" likely knows a lot more about what would improve his standard of living than you or I, and my mind boggles at any other presumption.

So why haven't they all done so? An RA may well have more on-the-ground knowledge, but a do-gooder may well have more of the kind of knowledge that you learn in school. Since the D-G is not seeking to take over the RA's entire life, it's a case of two heads are better than one.

If he'd rather spend his money on beer than bednets, but you give him a bednet anyway, then I hope it makes you happy, because you're clearly not doing it for him.

You could do with distingusihing short term gains from long term interests. People don't pop out of the womb knowing how to maximise the latter. It takes education. And institions: why save when the banks are crooked.

But these "institutions" are not laws of nature, they aren't even tangible things - an "institution" is just a description of the way people co-ordinate with each other. So yes, people in developing countries often can't co-ordinate because they have bad institutions, but it would be equally true to say that they can't have good institutions because they don't co-ordinate.

It would be truer still to say that good institions take a long and fragile history to evolve. They didn't evolve everywerhe and they arrived late where they did. Go back about 500 years and no one had good (democratic, accountable, fair honest) instituions.

Apart from the reasons you already mentioned, marketing creates a brand which reduces information costs. This is of course particularly important in a low information market. Spending money to promote your brand is a pre-commitment to provide satisfactory quality products.

It's hard to know where to start with that lot. Brands aren't information like lib raries are information, they are an attempt to get people t to buy things by whatever means is permitted. They can be wors than no information at all, since African mothers would have presumably continued to brest fee without nestle's intervention:

"The Nestlé boycott is a boycott launched on July 7, 1977, in the United States against the Swiss-based Nestlé corporation. It spread in the United States, and expanded into Europe in the early 1980s. It was prompted by concern about Nestle's "aggressive marketing" of breast milk substitutes (infant formula), particularly in less economically developed countries (LEDCs), which campaigners claim contributes to the unnecessary suffering and deaths of babies, largely among the poor.[1] Among the campaigners, Professor Derek Jelliffe and his wife Patrice, who contributed to establish the World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action (WABA), were particularly instrumental in helping to coordinate the boycott and giving it ample visibility worldwide."

Actually, I think that a "random African" likely knows a lot more about what would improve his standard of living than you or I, and my mind boggles at any other presumption. If he'd rather spend his money on beer than bednets, but you give him a bednet anyway, then I hope it makes you happy, because you're clearly not doing it for him.

Yes, because all humans are perfectly rational and have unlimited willpower. But then again, why doesn't he sell the bednet I gave him and buys beer with it?

So every time a business gains on account of departures from the free market, that's a travesty, but every time it loses, that's the way things are supposed to work. No wonder you think academics are the only ones who do any good. Besides, TBTF isn't an economic problem, this is a political problem. They had too many lobbyists to be allowed to fail, that's all.

He didn't say that. You're being a troll.