Lars P. Syll

What is money? (II) Currently the credit theory dominates monetary theorizing and policy debate. So, policy analyses implicitly make assumptions about money as if its properties qua  money were those of a form of debt credit. Currently prominent examples include Minsky as well as proponents of Modern Money Theory (MMT). Hyman Minsky, who has been as infl uential as any money theorist in recent times, coined in passing, in a substantive piece, the familiar...

Mr. Innes’s next point is that the idea, that “in modern days a money-saving device has been introduced called credit, and that, before this device was known, all purchases were paid for in cash, in other words in coins,” is simply a popular fallacy. The use of credit, he thinks, is far older than that of cash. The numerous instances, he adduces in support of this, from very remote times are certainly interesting … Mr. Innes’s development of this thesis is of unquestionable...

Papa was a rolling stone .[embedded content]

it is not the fact that science occurs that gives the world a structure such that it can be known by men. Rather, it is the fact that the world has such a structure that makes science, whether or not it actually occurs, possible. That is to say, it is not the character of science that imposes a determinate pattern or order on the world; but the order of the world that, under certain determinate conditions, makes possible the cluster of activities we call ‘science’. It does...

Sunshine of your love .[embedded content]

Comment mesurer le racisme et les discriminations raciales .[embedded content] Et ici le Rapport de recherche TEPP.

Ritva Syll In Memoriam (personal) .[embedded content] In loving memory of my mother-in-law, Ritva Syll, whose funeral took place yesterday at Skeda church, Sweden.

Real business cycles — nonsense on stilts They try to explain business cycles solely as problems of information, such as asymmetries and imperfections in the information agents have. Those assumptions are just as arbitrary as the institutional rigidities and inertia they find objectionable in other theories of business fluctuations … I try to point out how incapable the new equilibrium business cycles models are of explaining the most obvious observed facts...

Structural equation modelling (student stuff) .[embedded content] This is a good introduction to some of the basic thoughts behind the use of SEMs. But — for the controversial question if SEMs really can be considered causal, yours truly highly recommends reading Kenneth Bollen’s and Judea Pearl’s Eight myths about causality and structural equation models.

Table 2 Fallacy (student stuff) .[embedded content]