Peters (2019) made a splash criticizing the theory of expected utility on the grounds that it implicitly assumes ergodicity where this is unwarranted. He stated this applies widely in economics, to the point of making the whole field suspect:
economics is firmly stuck in the wrong conceptual space. Because the core mistake is 350 years old, the corresponding mindset is now firmly institutionalized.
He also proposed a fix of the theory based on maximizing time-average growth rate.
Doctor et al. (2020) responded stating that Peters essentially missed the target. Economists are aware of the problem (and have been for a while already) and do not apply the theory of expected utility in the naive way that Peters suggests they do. Briefly (and a bit too sharply), what Peters got right is not new, while what is new is not right.
Peters (2020) responded that he does not see much disagreement between what he originally said and what Doctor et al. (2020) state.
After the original paper and the subsequent exchange with Doctor et al., and the reactions of economists in, say, blogs and other spaces, do we have a consensus among economists regarding the merit (relevance, validity) of Peters' critique?
This is not a question of opinion. I am trying to objectively gauge the consensus in the profession, i.e. has the matter become clear to most and has the majority opinion converged on anything concrete.
The question is motivated by a discussion in the comments of "Why are utility functions typically assumed to be concave?"
References
- Doctor, J. N., Wakker, P. P., & Wang, T. V. (2020). Economists’ views on the ergodicity problem. Nature Physics, 16(12), 1168-1168.
- Peters, O. (2019). The ergodicity problem in economics. Nature Physics, 15(12), 1216-1221.
- Peters, O. (2020). Reply to: Economists’ views on the ergodicity problem. Nature Physics, 16(12), 1169-1169.