This chapter examines the historical development of weather forecasting, contrasting intuitive early methods with modern computational techniques. It also explores the complexities of economic predictions, drawing parallels with meteorological advancements and highlighting the unpredictability inherent in human behavior and macroeconomic events.
Physicist J. Doyne Farmer wants a new kind of economics that takes account of what we've learned from chaos theory and that builds more accurate models of how humans actually behave. Listen as he makes the case for complexity economics with EconTalk's Russ Roberts. Farmer argues that complexity economics makes better predictions than standard economic theory and does a better job dealing with the biggest problems in today's society.