Lars P. Syll

Critical realism — making sense of science .[embedded content]

Revealed preference theory — an empty tautology The experiment reported here was designed to reflect the fact that revealed preference theory is concerned with hypothetical choices rather than actual choices over time. In contrast to earlier experimental studies, the possibility that the different choices are made under different preference patterns can almost be ruled out. We find a considerable number of violations of the revealed preference axioms,...

Till minnet av en vän (personal) År 2018 var — precis som de flesta år — ett år med både glädje och sorg. För mig kommer året ändå alltid att främst förknipppas med att det var året då Bengt Nilsson, min bäste vän sedan mer än trettio år, gick ur tiden. Under många år åkte vi på sommaren i väg ut i Europa. Första gången var 1988. Då gick färden med vår gamla rostiga Merca till Berlin och Prag. Sista gången var sommaren 2018. Då gick färden till Flensburg,...

Jacques Lacan — a severe case of obscurantism To lure the intended or preferred audience into accepting an assertion or set of assertions, the obscurantist should first of all convince the reader that there is indeed a deep and profound insight lurking underneath the surface of his prima facie incomprehensible statements. The obscurantist’s hope is to persuade the intended reader that the hidden treasure, the true meaning, is indeed so valu able and so...

Challenging mainstream economics — a feminist perspective .[embedded content] A must-see!

.[embedded content] To my brothers and sisters in Afghanistan.

What Žižek and other postmodern obscurantists have in common Among the soft obscurantists some aim at truth, but do not respect the norms for arriving at truth, such as focusing on causality, acting as devil’s advocate, and generating falsifiable hypotheses. Others do not aim at truth, and often scorn the very idea that there is such a thing. By assumption, these non-respecters of truth cannot be reached by argument, only by ridicule … Let me mention who...

Econometrics — a second-best explanatory practice Consider two elections, A and B. For each of them, identify the events that cause a given percentage of voters to turn out. Once we have thus explained the turnout in election A and the turnout in election B, the explanation of the difference (if any) follows automatically, as a by-product. As a bonus, we might be able to explain whether identical turnouts in A and B are accidental, that is, due to...

.[embedded content] One of the best movies I’ve ever seen. Un capolavoro!

MMT and the deficit myth .[embedded content] What Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) does is more or less what Knut Wicksell tried to do more than a hundred years ago, when he in 1898 wrote on ‘pure credit systems’ in Interest and Prices (Geldzins und Güterpreise). The difference is that today the ‘pure credit economy’ is a reality and not just a theoretical curiosity — MMT describes a fiat currency system that almost every country in the world is operating...