Lars P. Syll

July 22, 2011 — a date which will live in infamy .[embedded content] .[embedded content]

Instrumental variables — in search for identification We need relevance and validity. How realistic is validity, anyway? We ideally want our instrument to behave just like randomization in an experiment. But in the real world, how likely is that to actually happen? Or, if it’s an IV that requires control variables to be valid, how confident can we be that the controls really do everything we need them to? In the long-ago times, researchers were happy to...

Causal discovery and the faithfulness assumption (student stuff) .[embedded content] For more on the (questionable) faithfulness assumption, cf. chapter six of Nancy Cartwright’s Hunting causes and using them.

Conditional probabilities (student stuff) .[embedded content]

While the global super-rich are taking joyrides in space Instead of putting billions of dollars into space tourism for the chosen few, think of what that money could have done in saving our climate and helping the poor and suffering in the world. One can have nothing but contempt for these super-rich ego-boosting ethical morons. And as if this wasn’t enough, we have a totally uncritical media reporting on the events. What a disgrace!

Alan Kirman debunking mainstream economics .[embedded content] An economic theory that does not go beyond proving theorems and conditional ‘if-then’ statements — and do not make assertions and put forward hypotheses about real-world individuals and institutions — is of little consequence for anyone wanting to use theories to better understand, explain or predict real-world phenomena. Building theories and models on patently ridiculous assumptions we know...

Which causal inference books to read Source All suggestions are highly readable, but for the general reader, yours truly would also like to recommend The book of why by Pearl & Mackenzie.

Why economics has failed so miserably .[embedded content] The economy is — as emphasised by both Keynes and Soros — pervaded by genuine uncertainty and reflexivity. The uncertainty makes the future difficult to anticipate and reflexivity often makes our expectations about the future something that actually changes the future. They both severely undermine the explanations and predictions that are made  within the standard economic models.

Gendern oder nicht gendern? .[embedded content]

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