Lars P. Syll

Covid-19 and the magic money tree What will be the lasting effects of the covid-19 pandemic? Start with the size of the state. Over the next year government debt will rise sharply, as spending jumps and tax revenues collapse. When the economy recovers, attention will turn to paying it down. “Capital and Ideology”, a new book by Thomas Piketty, shows that after the first and second world wars many governments in the West turned to heavier taxation of the...

Yours truly among the top economics influencers to follow Yours truly is — together with people like e.g. Paul Krugman, Nate Silver, Dani Rodrik, Thomas Piketty, Steve Keen — ranked on Focus Economics’ Top 75 Influencers to Follow list. The list features academics, journalists, and central bankers who are widely followed on Twitter. I am – of course – truly awed, honoured and delighted.   [Added: And thanks everyone for all your congratulations and kind...

Economic growth and the size of the ‘private sector’ Economic growth has since long interested economists. Not least, the question of which factors are behind high growth rates has been in focus. The factors usually pointed at are mainly economic, social and political variables. In an interesting study from the University of  Helsinki, Tatu Westling expanded the potential causal variables to also include biological and sexual variables. In the report Male...

Ngîl cennin eriel vi  [embedded content]

On the non-neutrality of money Paul Krugman has repeatedly over the years argued that we should continue to use neoclassical hobby horses like IS-LM and Aggregate Supply-Aggregate Demand models. Here’s one example: So why do AS-AD? … We do want, somewhere along the way, to get across the notion of the self-correcting economy, the notion that in the long run, we may all be dead, but that we also have a tendency to return to full employment via price...

 [embedded content] Les sentiments amoureux résumé en 4 minutes sublimes.

Ti voglio così come sei  [embedded content] Le canzoni di questa cantautore mi hanno sempre emozionato. È grandissimo Peppino!

Chicago economics — a bit out of touch with the real world Tom Sargent is a bit out of touch with the real world up there in his office … Certain people have a capacity for ignoring facts which are patenty obvious, but are counter to their view of the world; so they just ignore them … Sargent is a sort of tinkerer, playing an intellectual game. He looks at a puzzle to see if h ecan solve it in a particular way, exercising these fancy techniques. Alan...

 [embedded content] Un chanteur sans compromission. Toujours extra.

Assar Lindbeck skriver i DN (20200106) tillsammans med Mats Persson (L) att Sverige är illa rustat för fortsatt invandring. Få personer har haft ett så stort inflytande på den svenska samhällsutvecklingen under det senaste halvseklet som Lindbeck. Om Sverige är illa rustat ekonomiskt och politiskt beror det mycket på honom. Assar Lindbeck är en av de mest inflytelserika nationalekonomer Sverige haft. Under en epok, då nationalekonomer har betraktats som sanningsägande guruer...