Lars P. Syll

Where modern macroeconomics went wrong DSGE models seem to take it as a religious tenet that consumption should be explained by a model of a representative agent maximizing his utility over an infinite lifetime without borrowing constraints. Doing so is called micro-founding the model. But economics is a behavioral science. If Keynes was right that individuals saved a constant fraction of their income, an aggregate model based on that assumption is...

These photos of my grand-father Axel Lissmark and Kurt Gödel made me come to realize that my new specs perhaps weren’t really that new …

Time irreversibility and non-ergodicity are — as yours truly repeatedly has argued — extremely important issues for understanding what are some of the deep fundamental flaws of mainstream economics. Ole Peters presentation at Gresham College gives further  evidence why expectation values are irrelevant for understanding real-world economic systems. [embedded content]

En plats nära mitt hjärta (personal) Östra kyrkogården i Lund är en plats som alltid betytt mycket för mig. Hit har jag kommit många gånger för att söka tröst och vila för min själ. Tre av de människor jag älskat mest i mitt liv ligger begravda här. I dag tände jag ljus för dem alla — min hustru Kristina, min bror Peter, och min vän Bengt. RIP. [embedded content]

Le régime fondé en 1905 correspondait à une époque où la question religieuse était liée au catholicisme. Cent quinze ans plus tard, l’enracinement de l’islam la pose en termes différents. N’est-il pas légitime d’en réactualiser le contenu ? Jean-Louis Bianco, président de l’Observatoire de la laïcité: Ce serait une énorme erreur, non pas par rapport à l’islam, mais par rapport à la laïcité. La laïcité n’est pas tout à fait une valeur. Les valeurs, c’est la liberté,...

Olivier Blanchard fordert generöser Subventionen statt Kredite ZEIT ONLINE: Herr Blanchard, Deutschland hat gerade einen umfassenden Lockdown beschlossen, wie viele andere Staaten weltweit. Und der erste Lockdown ist noch nicht lange her. Glauben Sie, dass Unternehmen und Regierungen diesmal besser vorbereitet sind? Olivier Blanchard: Dieser zweite Lockdown hat ganz neue Dimensionen … Wir müssen die direkt und indirekt betroffenen Unternehmen und...

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The issue of interpreting economic theory is, in my opinion, the most serious problem now facing economic theorists. The feeling among many of us can be summarized as follows. Economic theory should deal with the real world. It is not a branch of abstract mathematics even though it utilizes mathematical tools. Since it is about the real world, people expect the theory to prove useful in achieving practical goals. But economic theory has not delivered the goods. Predictions...

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