Svensk universitetsutbildning — ett skämt!

HD och Sydsvenskan har talat med ett tiotal universitetslärare vid några av de mest populära programmen vid Lunds och Malmö universitet. De ger en närapå samstämmig bild: trots toppbetyg är det många av studenterna som inte kan läsa böcker.

– Vissa av våra studenter har problem med läsförståelsen och att ta till sig muntliga och skriftliga instruktioner, säger Nina Lundegren.
Hon är lektor och programansvarig på tandläkarprogrammet vid Malmö universitet. Studenterna som antogs i höstas hade A i alla ämnen plus extra meritpoäng. Så brukar det se ut. Trots detta tvingades man för tre år sedan lägga till ett nytt moment i utbildningen, där studenterna tränar sig på muntlig och skriftlig kommunikation.

”Vi

I Sverige har MMT knappt nämnts i den publika diskussionen överhuvudtaget. En genomsökning av tidningsdatabasen Retriever, som samlar upp det mesta som skrivs i detta land med någorlunda regelbundenhet finns MMT nämnt i ett par artiklar …
Ett epicentrum för denna teoribildning har varit och är Levi Institute vid Bard College där professorerna L Randal Wrey och Stepanie Kelton hör till de mest omtalade. Här har man vårdat det intellektuella arvet efter ekonomen och Keyneslärjungen Hyman Minsky …
MMT har gjort Keynes insikter till en mer generell utgångspunkt för ekonomin. Det vill säga, inte något som enbart gäller när räntan går mot noll och ekonomin riskerar att fastna i likviditetsfällan, som var Keynes scenario. Med andra ord kan ett land som har en egen valuta alltid

Problemen med Riksbankens oberoende

Riksbanken har en nästintill oinskränkt makt över penning-politiken, en politik som i hög grad styr inflation, sysselsättning och ekonomisk stabilitet. Denna makt bör vara föremål för större demokratisk övervakning för att säkerställa att den överensstämmer med vad vi som samhällsmedborgare har för intressen. Riksbanken verkar över tid ha utvecklat en slags ‘policybias’ där inflationskontroll prioriteras över arbetslöshet och välfärd, vilket för breda samhällsgrupper framstår som djupt stötande.
Lars Syll / Magasinet Konkret

Sedan ett par år tillbaka är yours truly fast medarbetare på det partipolitiskt obundna, frihetliga och progressiva samhällsmagasinet Konkret. Mina artiklar finns att läsa här.

Photo by barnilsson
During my first ten years travelling back and forth between Lund and Berlin, it was still there, even when this photo of yours truly — leisurely reading taz — was taken at Café Einstein back in the summer of 1988.
Had anyone told me then that the wall would soon come tumbling down, I would probably just have shaken my head and laughed. At the time everyone thought it was there for good.
For thirty-five years now I’ve been happy we were all so wrong, so wrong.

L’ascenseur social est en panne

L’expression “l’ascenseur social est en panne” désigne le déclin de la mobilité sociale, autrement dit, la capacité d’un individu à s’élever au sein de l’échelle sociale grâce à ses efforts et ses compétences. Ce phénomène, autrefois encouragé par l’éducation et le marché du travail, semble aujourd’hui compromis pour une grande partie de la population.
En France, le système d’éducation était censé être un levier d’égalité des chances. Or, les inégalités d’accès aux ressources éducatives demeurent fortes, ce qui impacte la réussite scolaire. Les élèves des milieux défavorisés sont confrontés à des obstacles supplémentaires, tels que le manque de soutien pédagogique et les préjugés sociaux. Ces difficultés restreignent leurs

From Lars Syll
To be ‘analytical’ and ‘logical’ is something most people find recommendable. These words have a positive connotation. Scientists think more deeply than most other people because they use ‘logical’ and ‘analytical’ methods. In dictionaries, logic is often defined as “reasoning conducted or assessed according to strict principles of validity” and ‘analysis’ as having to do with “breaking something down.”
But that’s not the whole picture. As used in science, analysis usually means something more specific. It means to separate a problem into its constituent elements so as to reduce complex — and often complicated — wholes into smaller (simpler) and more manageable parts. You take the whole and break it down (decompose) into its separate parts. Looking at the parts

Die fixe Idee des Finanzministers

Bundeskanzler Olaf Scholz entließ Finanzminister Christian Lindner angesichts anhaltender Konflikte in der deutschen Regierungs-koalition. Lindner geriet wiederholt mit Scholz über finanzpolitische Fragen aneinander. Er lehnte die Pläne der SPD und Grünen für schuldenfinanzierte Maßnahmen entschieden ab, einschließlich einer Lockerung der ‘Schuldenbremse’ zur Förderung von Investitionen, insbesondere in Energie und Infrastruktur.
Einer der grundlegendsten Denkfehler in der heutigen Diskussion über Staatsschulden und Haushaltsdefizite ist, dass nicht zwischen verschiedenen Formen von Schulden unterschieden wird. Auch wenn es auf makroökonomischer Ebene notwendig ist, dass Schulden und Vermögenswerte einander ausgleichen,

As the national debt increases it acts as a self-equilibrating force, gradually diminishing the further need for its growth and finally reaching an equilibrium level where its tendency to grow comes completely to an end. The greater the national debt the greater is the quantity of private wealth. The reason for this is simply that for every dollar of debt owed by the government there is a private creditor who owns the government obligations (possibly through a corporation in which he has shares), and who regards these obligations as part of his private fortune. The greater the private fortunes the less is the incentive to add to them by saving out of current income. As current saving is thus discouraged by the great accumulation of past savings, spending out of current

On Sraffa and Keynes

Both neo-classical and Sraffian theory stand mute when it comes to money and accumulation under capitalist conditions. In both frameworks the central areas of “the theory of money and the theory of capitalist accumulation” are among “the difficult analytical problems” that “remain to be settled” …
A profit flows based analysis of an accumulating capitalist economy requires that the analysis include money and banking from the very beginning. This is the meaning of Keynes and why Keynes is incompatible with neo-classical theory and only marginally compatible with Sraffian theory …
Vincent Lombardi, who, like George Allen, was a successful football coach once said “Winning isn’t everything, it is the only thing.” I would like to

November 5 2024. A date that will live in infamy.

Logic and truth in economics

To be ‘analytical’ and ‘logical’ is something most people find recommendable. These words have a positive connotation. Scientists think more deeply than most other people because they use ‘logical’ and ‘analytical’ methods. In dictionaries, logic is often defined as “reasoning conducted or assessed according to strict principles of validity” and ‘analysis’ as having to do with “breaking something down.”
But that’s not the whole picture. As used in science, analysis usually means something more specific. It means to separate a problem into its constituent elements so as to reduce complex — and often complicated — wholes into smaller (simpler) and more manageable parts. You take the whole and break it down (decompose) into its

From Lars Syll
We have already shown that deficit spending increases our collective savings. But what happens if Uncle Sam borrows when he runs a deficit? Is that wht eats up savings and forces interest rates higher? The answer is no.
The financial crowding-out story asks us to imagine that there’s a fixed supply of savings from which anyone can attempt to borrow …
MMT rejects the loanable funds story, which is rooted in the idea that borrowing is limited by access to scarce financial resources …
Government deficits always lead to a dollar-for-dollar increase in the supply of net financial assets held in the nongovernment bucket. That’s not a theory. That’s not an opinion. It’s just the cold hard reality of stock-flow consistent accounting.
So fiscal deficits — even with government

What pulls me through in this world of troubles

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Best match point ever

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En statsbudget för Sveriges bästa

En statsbudget i balans optimerar inte det reala resursutnyttjandet i ekonomin. Statsbudgeten och dess ramverk ska i stället verka för Sveriges bästa, så att tågen kan rulla och sjuka får vård, skriver Erik Arnell, utredare, Johannes Borgström lektor och docent vid Uppsala universitet och Peo Hansen, professor i statsvetenskap vid Linköpings universitet.
Det gläder oss att Jesper Hansson understryker vikten av att statens ekonomiska politik utformas med hänsyn till den reala ekonomin. Den moderna penningteorins (MMT) grundtes, att staten inte står inför finansiella begränsningar i sin egen valuta, har nämligen lett till ett fokus på just hur staten och realekonomin samspelar. I Sverige har i stället en ensidig strävan

MMT — debunking the deficit myth

We have already shown that deficit spending increases our collective savings. But what happens if Uncle Sam borrows when he runs a deficit? Is that wht eats up savings and forces interest rates higher? The answer is no.
The financial crowding-out story asks us to imagine that there’s a fixed supply of savings from which anyone can attempt to borrow …
MMT rejects the loanable funds story, which is rooted in the idea that borrowing is limited by access to scarce financial resources …
Government deficits always lead to a dollar-for-dollar increase in the supply of net financial assets held in the nongovernment bucket. That’s not a theory. That’s not an opinion. It’s just the cold hard reality of stock-flow consistent

Daniel Waldenströms rappakalja om ojämlikheten

Medan Piketty ser det ekonomiska systemet som en ojämlikhetsskapande faktor ser Waldenström marknaden som lösningen …
Piketty och Waldenström är eniga om politikens, demokratins och utbildningens viktiga roll för den utveckling som skett mot ökad jämlikhet. Den stora skillnaden ser vi i inställningen till presenterade fakta. Waldenström säger att Pikettys analys är ”bitvis ideologisk”, men jag kan inte finna annat än att Waldenströms analys är lika ideologisk.
Vad Waldenström presenterar som en ny analys är sådant som Timbro och Svenskt Näringsliv har spridit sedan länge. Växande förmögenheter och vinster är inte problemet utan är tvärtom det som skapat välfärd …

Waldenström håller med om att

• Sedan 2020, då det här decenniet av allt större klyftor inleddes, har världens fem rikaste män mer än fördubblat sina förmögenheter medan nästan fem miljarder människor har fått se sina tillgångar minska.
• Om de fem rikaste männen skulle göra av med varsin miljon USD om dagen skulle det ta 476 år att spendera deras sammanlagda förmögenhet.
• Sju av tio av världens största bolag har en dollarmiljardär som koncernchef eller huvudaktieägare.
• Globalt sett äger männen tillsammans 105 biljoner USD mer än kvinnorna. Det är mer än fyra gånger så mycket som USA:s hela ekonomi.
• Världens rikaste procent äger 43 procent av alla globala finansiella tillgångar.
• I USA har ett genomsnittligt färgat hushåll bara 15,8 procent av de ekonomiska tillgångar som ett genomsnittligt vitt

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Statens finanser funkar inte som du tror

Sex av åtta riksdagspartier har nyss ställt sig bakom ett nytt stramt finanspolitiskt ramverk. Osagt i diskussionerna kring ramverket är en bakomliggande föreställning att staten fungerar som ett hushåll eller ett företag: Att det är osunt och riskabelt för staten att ”leva över sina tillgångar” och att dra på sig stora skulder. Att ”den som är satt i skuld är inte fri”. Metaforerna och liknelserna är lika talrika som Egyptens gräshoppor.
Allt detta grundar sig på den etablerade föreställningen bland nationalekonomer och politiker att staten finansieras av skatter och lån. Men stämmer den föreställningen? Vi har ställt oss den frågan. Svaret hittade vi i lagstift-ningens beskrivningar av statens betalningsflöden

From Lars Syll
Today’s model of delegation has much to recommend it. But it should not be cloaked in euphemism. It is an abrogation of democratic sovereignty for pragmatic reasons, conditioned on the one hand by deeply entrenched and unflattering assumptions about electoral politics and, on the other, on an unquestioning acceptance of the private organization of credit markets and their lack of confidence in democratic control of economic policy. This may be an abrogation that we are willing to accept, but it should be recognized for what it is and the assumptions on which it is based should be subject to scrutiny and, if necessary, to revision …
Independence of central banks was defined in relation to governments and the typical social interest groups of the corporatist era – trade

What statistics teachers get wrong!

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This insightful video confirms what I always like to emphasize to my doctoral students:
Statistics is no substitute for thinking.
A non-trivial part of teaching statistics is made up of learning students to perform significance testing. A problem I have noticed repeatedly over the years, however, is that no matter how careful you try to be in explicating what the probabilities generated by these statistical tests — p-values — really are, still most students misinterpret them.
Giving a statistics course for the Swedish National Research School in History, I asked the students at the exam to explain how one should correctly interpret p-values. Although the correct definition is p(data|null

For a new fiscal policy framework

Poorer and lower-income households have a higher marginal propensity (MPC) to consume than richer and higher-income households. The more equal income and wealth are distributed, the higher the structural level of demand of an economy. A high structural level of demand in turn reduces the need for public deficits: full capacity utilisation is already achieved at a lower level of debt and deficits. The more unequal the distribution, on the other hand, the higher the need for deficits and debt …
Hence, if there is a way to limit the need for debt in the long run—without running the economy into the ground—it is not through overly restrictive fiscal policy, but rather through thoughtful measures for evenly distributed

How to become a Keynesian

Until [2008], when the banking industry came crashing down and depression loomed for the first time in my lifetime, I had never thought to read The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money, despite my interest in economics … I had heard that it was a very difficult book and that the book had been refuted by Milton Friedman …
Baffled by the profession’s disarray, I decided I had better read The General Theory. Having done so, I have concluded that, despite its antiquity, it is the best guide we have to the crisis …
It is an especially difficult read for present-day academic economists, because it is based on a conception of economics remote from theirs … The dominant conception of economics today, and one that has guided

Central bank independence — a convenient illusion

Today’s model of delegation has much to recommend it. But it should not be cloaked in euphemism. It is an abrogation of democratic sovereignty for pragmatic reasons, conditioned on the one hand by deeply entrenched and unflattering assumptions about electoral politics and, on the other, on an unquestioning acceptance of the private organization of credit markets and their lack of confidence in democratic control of economic policy. This may be an abrogation that we are willing to accept, but it should be recognized for what it is and the assumptions on which it is based should be subject to scrutiny and, if necessary, to revision …
Independence of central banks was defined in relation to governments and

La blague raciste qui pourrait coûter cher à Trump

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Can it be truthfully said that “internal borrowing shifts the war burden to future generations while taxing places it on the present generation”? A thousand times no! The present generation must still give up resources to produce the munitions hurled at the enemy. In the future, some of our grandchildren will be giving up goods and services to other grandchildren. That is the nub of the matter. The only way in which we can impose a direct burden on the future nation as a whole is by incurring an external debt or by passing along less capital equipment to our posterity.
Paul A. Samuelson

I fall någon till äventyrs tror att det bara är postkeynesianer och MMT förespråkare som tycker argumentet “vi måste ha ett balansmål eftersom ett underskottsmål orättvist skulle belasta

Biomedical, psychological, and social sciences are “soft” insofar as they focus on phenomena whose regularities are amorphous and situational (in contrast to the universal, exact laws which dominate physical sciences). In doing so, they must confront another major source of research uncertainty:
Living organisms are characterized by natural variation and complex feedback within and across organisms, which introduces sampling variation or “noise” that we model as statistical uncertainty. The tremendous variability among and within living beings and systems makes it crucial to account for this uncertainty when designing and analyzing studies of those entities.
Unfortunately, our desire for certainty leads to a tendency to approach statistics as if it could eliminate all

Over the rainbow (personal)

Spending a lovely weekend on our island in the Karlskrona​ archipelago my loved one took this beautiful picture of an autumn rainbow. Pure magic!

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Fish in the seaYou know how I feelRiver running freeYou know how I feelBlossom on a treeYou know how I feel
Stars when you shineYou know how I feelScent of the pineYou know how I feelOh, freedom is mineAnd I know how I feel