Talk:Saltwater and freshwater economics

While this is a notable "school" dating back to at least 1988 (ie not really a neologism), it is well-described in mainstream economics already. Still, the mainstream economics page may change; there's already maybe an argument to made that the distinction is disappearing ... II | (t - c) 03:27, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Many years ago, I encountered the term “saltwater” being used by various econ professors (themselves from different institutions) to describe an attitude towards economics; but it was an attitude, not a single school. Rather than there being the Saltwater School, there were saltwater departments, who were interested in things such as non-standard decision theory. I later found mention of the term in something by Krugman. —SlamDiego&#8592;T 19:29, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Sweetwater?
Who refers to freshwater as sweetwater? I've never heard anyway refer to the contents of the Great Lakes as containing "sweetwater." The only definition of "sweetwater" I found online refers to some form of wine. I did find economists talking about saltwater vs. sweetwater, but the terminology seems odd. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.183.171.30 (talk) 20:57, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
 * Obviously "Eau douce", "Agua dulce", "Acqua dolce" etc...--CSTAR (talk) 21:03, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Saltwater school/Freshwater school?
I was wondering whether there was any good reasoning against changing the name of the page to Saltwater school/Freshwater school or Saltwater vs. Freshwater schools of economic thought, or something along these lines. The title seems to give the page a saltwater bias, where the article is about contrasting the schools of thought. Additionally, freshwater economics redirects to this page. Flovalflyer (talk) 22:30, 29 July 2009 (UTC)

Bounded Rationality is a Behavioral Economics theory
And as the Freshwater school uses the rational actor theory, shouldn't BR be in the Saltwater school?

Mnnlaxer (talk) 15:53, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Waldmann citation
citation #5 (Waldmann) is incomplete, does anyone know what work is this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.120.231.113 (talk) 23:27, 29 August 2009 (UTC)
 * I think it is this. Not sure if he would qualify as a good source per out policy on self published sources, but the logic of the post is good and it's a helpful rundown. Protonk (talk) 00:43, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

Typo
The second paragraph in the "Differences" section has a typo. It should start with "Researchers associated with "the saltwater school" instead of "freshwater school."

Jenghw (talk) 12:41, 30 September 2012 (UTC)

A new opening statement
In my first reading of this article, I had to read through the whole thing to figure what it was all about. Once I did that, I realized that the opening statement uses obtuse language designed to disguise a bias toward the freshwater school. All it accomplished in my case was confusion. I recommend that the article start with a clear statement such as:

The saltwater and freshwater "schools" of macroeconomic theory represent a difference of opinion about how actively the government should intervene in a nation's economy. In the United States, advocates of greater intervention tend to work out of universities in the coastal cities and are thus called the saltwater school. Economists who prefer the government to set rules but refrain from discretionary intervention tend to be with universities near the Great Lakes and are called the freshwater school. These terms are informal nicknames and do not represent organized schools of theory.

If my understanding is correct, this opening would be more informative than what we have now. HowardMorland (talk) 23:57, 14 June 2013 (UTC)

NPOV dispute
This article seems to be written from a "freshwater" perspective. As suggested by HowardMorland in the section above, the opening sentence seems "designed to disguise a bias toward the freshwater school". This bias is apparent throughout the article, including the closing paragraph, which contains sarcastic remarks against one of the advocates of the saltwater school, Paul Krugman. Given that some of the historical differences between both schools remain unsolved nowadays, it would be important to present them from a neutral point of view.

I suggest to start by replacing the current opening paragraph by an edited version of the one suggested by HowardMorland above and by removing the sarcastic remarks at the end. Nosce (talk) 08:20, 8 January 2014 (UTC)