Re: Uncertainty

["J. Barkley Rosser, Jr." <rosserjb@xxxxxxx>]

Mat,
     Not bad.  Of course this is the vision behind the
whole sunspot equilibrium literature.  The only problem
with that literature, in contrast to Paul Davidson's
complaints about it, is the problem of coordination
failure that has been mentioned by others.  The multiple
equilibria arising from such models assume that
everybody has the same expectations about each
others' expectations, a kind of global Nash equilibrium.
But, there is no reason to expect anything of the sort.
Thus, the future is even more complexly uncertain.
Barkley Rosser
-----Original Message-----
From: Forstater, Mathew <ForstaterM@xxxxxxxx>
To: 'pkt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ' <pkt@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thursday, December 21, 2000 10:43 AM
Subject: RE: Uncertainty


>From: PHILIPPE BURGER
>
>>This uncertainty is ontological because the facts
>>on the future on which investment is based is not known
>
>Kregel put it very simply some years ago (in the Lachmann festschrift
edited by
>Kirzner), in distinguishing between Austrian conceptions of radical
uncertainty
>and Keynes's fundamental uncertainty.
>
>In Keynes, investment decisions today depend on expectations of future
income,
>but the future income itself will depend on today's investment.
>
>Future output and employment cannot be objective data informing investor
>expectations, as they are endogenously determined by investor decisions.
>
>The [or, at least, these important] objective data not only do not exist,
they
>cannot exist.
>
>Yes?
>