Lars P. Syll

We are all realists and we all — Mäki, Cartwright, and I — self-consciously present ourselves as such. The most obvious research-guiding commonality, perhaps, is that we do all look at the ontological presuppositions of economics or economists. Where we part company, I believe, is that I want to go much further. I guess I would see their work as primarily analytical and my own as more critically constructive or dialectical. My goal is less the clarification of what economists...

Graduate education in economics Modern economics has become increasingly irrelevant to the understanding of the real world. In his seminal book Economics and Reality (1997) Tony Lawson traced this irrelevance to the failure of economists to match their deductive-axiomatic methods with their subject. It is — sad to say — as relevant today as it was twenty-three years ago. It is still a fact that within mainstream economics internal validity is everything...

Heyr þú oss himnum á .                                                                                                                                 [embedded content]

Gustaf Fjaestad — the winter magician .                                                                                                                            [embedded content]

Marknadsstyrd skola? Nej tack! Det är allvarligt att likvärdigheten brister i dag, men tyvärr blir det inte bättre utan skevheterna ökar med tiden när vi har ett fritt skolval och en rörlig skolpeng. Den dystra slutsatsen är att Sverige allt mer blir ett samhälle där du måste vara född i rätt familj och med ett starkt socialt kapital i bagaget för att kunna lyckas i livet. Det är en tankemodell som tyvärr kommer att vinna mark. Att inte se problemen med...

Die Pandemie prägt derzeit auf beispiellose Weise die Wirtschaft weltweit. Doch nicht überall ist die Reaktion der Unternehmen dieselbe. In der Krise strukturieren deutsche Konzerne ihre Führungsetagen um, allerdings ganz anders als ihre Wettbewerber in anderen westlichen Industrieländern. Während dort die Vorstände deutlich weiblicher werden, sind in deutschen Börsenunternehmen im Krisenjahr zwei Mechanismen zu beobachten: eine Verkleinerung der Vorstände und der Rückgriff...

.                                                                                                                           [embedded content] A newly wedded couple celebrating in the garden of their summer residence. As always, for you, Jeanette. 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...

.                                                                                                                                  [embedded content]

[embedded content] From a theoretical perspective, Simpson’s paradox importantly shows that causality can never be reduced to a question of statistics or probabilities. To understand causality we always have to relate it to a specific causal structure. Statistical correlations are never enough. No structure, no causality. Simpson’s paradox is an interesting paradox in itself, but it can also highlight a deficiency in the traditional econometric approach towards...

Conditional exchangeability and causal inference In observational data, it is unrealistic to assume that the treatment groups are exchangeable. In other words, there is no reason to expect that the groups are the same in all relevant variables other than the treatment. However, if we control for relevant variables by conditioning, then maybe the subgroups will be exchangeable. We will clarify what the “relevant variables” are, but for now, let’s just say...