Lars P. Syll

E penso a te  [embedded content]

Something repellent clings to the lie, and though the consciousness of this was indeed beaten into one with the old whip, this simultaneously said something about the master of the dungeon. The mistake lies in all too much honesty. Whoever lies, is ashamed, because in every lie they must experience what is degrading in the existing state of the world … Such shame saps the energy of the lies of those who are more subtly organized. They do it badly, and only thereby does the lie...

Econometrics — a crooked path from cause to effect  [embedded content] In their book Mastering ‘Metrics: The Path from Cause to Effect Joshua Angrist and Jörn-Steffen Pischke write: Our first line of attack on the causality problem is a randomized experiment, often called a randomized trial. In a randomized trial, researchers change the causal variables of interest … for a group selected using something like a coin toss. By changing circumstances randomly,...

 [embedded content] This one is for my sons and daughters — David, Tora, Linnea, Sebastian, Amanda.

But once, we were here  [embedded content] One of the greatest movie scenes ever.

Vinstdrivna friskolor? Nej tack! Min gamla kollega från tiden vid nationalekonomiska institutionen i Lund, Anne-Marie Pålsson, förklarar varför det här med vinstdrivna friskolor kanske inte är en särskilt begåvad idé. Bra rutet Anne-Marie! [embedded content] [h/t Jan Wiklund]

The ‘New Keynesian’ Monetarist fantasy is finally over Kenneth Rogoff of Harvard recently argued that fiscal stabilization policy “is far too politicized to substitute consistently for modern independent technocratic central banks.” But instead of considering how this defect might be overcome, Rogoff sees no alternative to continuing with the prevailing monetary-policy regime – despite the overwhelming evidence that central banks are unable to play their...

I Sydsvenskan skrev för ett par veckor sedan tidningens politiske chefredaktör Heidi Avellan apropå friskolor följande: Friskolor … infördes 1992. Blev det bra? Det finns mycket att invända mot. Forskningen visar att det fria skolvalet och fler friskolor är viktiga förklaringar till skolsegregation, det är framför allt resursstarka föräldrar med god ekonomi och hög utbildning som väljer. Lägg till misstanke om betygsinflation och övervinster. Det är klart att det inte är bra....

 [embedded content] I sing in the language of the heart, It’s an invented language that I’ve had for a very long time. I believe I started singing in it when I was about 12. Roughly that time. And I believed that I was speaking to God when I sang in that language.

On randomization and regression (wonkish) Randomization does not justify the regression model, so that bias can be expected, and the usual formulas do not give the right variances. Moreover, regression need not improve precision … What is the source of the bias when regression models are applied to experimental data? In brief, the regression model assumes linear additive effects. Given the assignments, the response is taken to be a linear combina- tion of...