Lars P. Syll

Les problèmes clés de l’UE Ouf ! La réunion des dirigeants des Etats de l’Union européenne (UE) n’a finalement pas accouché d’une souris. Le plan de relance qui vient d’être décidé est une avancée politique et institutionnelle très importante … Un tabou est tombé, celui du refus de principe de toute solidarité financière entre les Etats membres face à la crise. Mais surtout, ce plan est inscrit dans la logique néolibérale de l’UE, et il l’est même...

Top economics influencers to follow Economics influencers such as academics, journalists, industry professionals and even central bankers frequently take to Twitter to share their daily thoughts on all things economics, finance, monetary policy and politics … We put together a list of top 79 economics influencers that you can follow on Twitter. Nominees came from our team of at Focus Economics and we have ranked this list by number of followers. 1) Paul...

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...

How (not) to do economics  [embedded content] Great lecture on how to do — and not to do — economics, delivered by Robert Skidelsky.

How to use models in economics The reason you study an issue at all is usually that you care about it, that there’s something you want to achieve or see happen. Motivation is always there; the trick is to do all you can to avoid motivated reasoning that validates what you want to hear. In my experience, modeling is a helpful tool (among others) in avoiding that trap, in being self-aware when you’re starting to let your desired conclusions dictate your...

[embedded content]Eighteen years ago today, I married this wonderful lady. As always, for you, Jeanette Meyer. “Though I speak with the tongues of angels, If I have not love… My words would resound with but a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy​… And understand all mysteries… and all knowledge… And though I have all faith So that I could remove mountains, If I have not love… I am nothing.”

Why would an academic profession sanction the use of theories based on crassly unrealistic assumptions? It is not an intuitively attractive idea. One suspects that the underlying reason is: economists are, in the main, committed to the defense of propositions that cannot be generated by models based on realistic assumptions. For example, a long string of unrealistic assumptions are necessary to generate the desired conclusion that unregulated financial markets perform...

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 [embedded content] As young research stipendiate in the U.S. — in the early ’80s — yours truly remember reading several of Anwar Shaikh’s articles on the poverty of neo-Ricardian economics, the laws of production, and crisis theories. He was a great inspiration at the time. He still is.

Keynes on the additivity fallacy The unpopularity of the principle of organic unities shows very clearly how great is the danger of the assumption of unproved additive formulas. The fallacy, of which ignorance of organic unity is a particular instance, may perhaps be mathematically represented thus: suppose f(x) is the goodness of x and f(y) is the goodness of y. It is then assumed that the goodness of x and y together is f(x) + f(y) when it is clearly f(x...