Economists spar over modeling the real economy, invoking Borges' 1:1 map parable
Afinetheorem · x · 2026-10-13
Economist malcolmreavell mocked the idea of 'using models instead of studying the real economy — and they get a prize for that,' widely read as a jab at a Nobel-winning modeling approach. The accompanying image is Borges' 'On Exactitude in Science,' the parable of a 1:1 map of the Empire left to rot in the desert — an allegory about models whose perfect precision makes them useless. The exchange captures the methods debate over whether formal models (and now AI models) can substitute for direct empirical study of the economy.
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