Lars P. Syll

What properties do societies possess that might make them possible objects of knowledge for us? My strategy in developing an answer to this question will be effectively based on a pincer movement. But in deploying the pincer I shall concentrate first on the ontological question of the properties that societies possess, before shifting to the epistemological question of how these properties make them possible objects of knowledge for us. This is not an arbitrary order of...

A primer on causal inference  [embedded content] D H Kim’s twelve videos give a splendid introduction to modern thinking on causality. Highly recommendable student stuff!

Causation and causal inference [embedded content] Who said science presentations have to be boring?

Prediction vs Causal Inference  [embedded content]

Econometrics as a testing device Debating econometrics and its short-comings yours truly often gets the response from econometricians that “ok, maybe econometrics isn’t perfect, but you have to admit that it is a great technique for empirical testing of economic hypotheses.” I usually respond by referring to the text below … Most econometricians today … believe that the main objective of applied econometrics is the confrontation of economic theories with...

[embedded content] Better than ever. Absolutely awesome. The Silver Girl still sails on.

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Econometrics — a matter of BELIEF and FAITH Everybody who takes regression analysis course, studies the assumptions of regression model. But nobody knows why, because after reading about the axioms, they are rarely mentioned. But the assumptions are important, because if any one assumption is wrong, the regression is not valid, and the interpretations can be completely wrong. In order to have a valid regression model, you must have right regressors, the...

Econometrics and the Axiom of Omniscience Most work in econometrics and regression analysis is — still — made on the assumption that the researcher has a theoretical model that is ‘true.’ Based on this belief of having a correct specification for an econometric model or running a regression, one proceeds as if the only problem remaining to solve have to do with measurement and observation. When things sound to good to be true, they usually aren’t. And that...