Lars P. Syll

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Universitetslärare — folk som jobbar gratis i det tysta Universitet och högskolor är genomsyrade av en kultur där vi jobbar gratis — med forskning, med undervisning och med samverkan. Vi gör det för att vi är dedikerade och brinner för vårt jobb och för att vi vill ge våra studenter en bra utbildning. Men den viktigaste orsaken är att det är helt oundvikligt om man vill ha minsta chans att göra karriär och få forskningstid … Medan vi väntar på...

I’ve never yet been able to understand why the economics profession was/is so impressed by the Arrow-Debreu results. They establish that in an extremely abstract model of an economy, there exists a unique equilibrium with certain properties. The assumptions required to obtain the result make this economy utterly unlike anything in the real world. In effect, it tells us nothing at all. So why pay any attention to it? The attention, I suspect, must come from some prior...

Confronting the rich and mighty .                                                                                                                                                                                                    [embedded content] Courage is to do the right thing in spite of danger and fear. To keep on even if opportunities to turn back are given. Like in the great stories. The ones where people have lots of chances of turning back, but do...

[embedded content] In loving memory of my father-in-law, Erik Syll (1930-2020). May God hold you in the palm of his hand.

Why economic models do not explain In physics, we have theories and centuries of experience and experiments that show how gravity makes bodies move. In economics, we know there is nothing equivalent. Mainstream economists necessarily have to load their theories and models with sets of auxiliary structural assumptions to get any results at all in their models. So why then do mainstream economists keep on pursuing this modelling project? Mainstream ‘as if’...

Statistics and causation — a critical review Causal inferences can be drawn from nonexperimental data. However, no mechanical rules can be laid down for the activity. Since Hume, that is almost a truism. Instead, causal inference seems to require an enormous investment of skill, intelligence, and hard work. Many convergent lines of evidence must be developed. Natural variation needs to be identified and exploited. Data must be collected. Confounders need to...

Vor 50 Jahren reiste Kanzler Willy Brandt nach Warschau. Am Ehrenmal für den Aufstand im jüdischen Ghetto fiel er auf die Knie. 

“It has to stop” [embedded content] Georgia’s Gabriel Sterling gave Trump the Joe McCarthy moment he more than anyone else deserves. Perhaps not as pithy as Welch’s game-changing “Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last have you left no sense of decency?” denunciation of McCarthy and his infamous Army-McCarthy hearings — “I don’t have the best words because I’m angry,” Sterling said midway through his press conference — but just as powerful...

Natural experiments in the social sciences How, then, can social scientists best make inferences about causal effects? One option is true experimentation … Random assignment ensures that any differences in outcomes between the groups are due either to chance error or to the causal effect … If the experiment were to be repeated over and over, the groups would not differ, on average, in the values of potential confounders. Thus, the average of the average...