Lars P. Syll

In the long run … … not everything is dead. My Tell wristwatch from 1929 is still running perfectly.  

Econometrics — a Keynesian perspective It will be remembered that the seventy translators of the Septuagint were shut up in seventy separate rooms with the Hebrew text and brought out with them, when they emerged, seventy identical translations. Would the same miracle be vouchsafed if seventy multiple correlators were shut up with the same statistical material? And anyhow, I suppose, if each had a different economist perched on his a priori, that would make...

    Sven Barthel & Roland Svensson, “Skärgård” (Bonniers, 1952).

Friskolorna — socialdemokratins största svek någonsin Att vi har skolor som Vetenskapsskolan och att skolor som Thorén Innovation School kan fortsätta sin verksamhet trots massiv kritik från Skolinspektionen är inte att förundras över. Det är ett resultat av att det ses som en rättighet snarare än ett privilegium att driva skolor och att beröva någon en rättighet är ingen enkel juridisk process. Eftersom detta synsätt förefaller djupt förankrat så lär den...

How the model became the message in economics In The World in the Model Mary Morgan gives a historical account of how the model became the message in economics. On the question of how the models provide a method of enquiry where they can function both as “objects to enquire into” and as “objects to enquire with”, Morgan argues that model reasoning involves a kind of experiment. She writes: It may help to clarify my account of modelling as a double method...

Pandemic depression antidote (XIII)  [embedded content]

Sweden’s coronavirus strategy will soon be the world’s [embedded content] Interesting interview, but unfortunately neither Prescott nor professor Lobelo have got the fact that Sweden’s strategy is NOT a herd immunity strategy, but an approach directed at keeping our health-care system working without having to ENFORCE social distancing on the population.

The representative agent — a theoretical cul-de-sac Rigorous macroeconomics must therefore ground its analysis in individual behavior, recognize that only a few key variables carry over to the aggregate level, and generally posit distinct functional forms at the macro level. Keynes and Kalecki are eminent examples of this. Keynes builds his analysis of aggregate consumption on personal income and a variety of subjective and objective factors that influence...

WHO slams herd immunity concept [embedded content] And: Sweden’s strategy is NOT a herd immunity strategy. It is rather an approach directed at keeping our health-care system working without having to ENFORCE social distancing on the population. Herd immunity is an interesting ‘thought experiment,’ but should also not be treated as anything else. As with most economics models, epidemiological models building on (as yet) unsubstantiated assumptions should be...

So your models are nothing but fiction? Count me out! I have spent a considerable part of my life building economic models, and examining the models that other economists have built. I believe that I am making reasonably good use of my talents in an attempt to understand the social world.I have no fellow-feeling with those economic theorists who, off the record at seminars and conferences, admit that they are only playing a game with other theorists. If...