Lars P. Syll

Economics — too important to be left to economists Bad economics underpinned the grand giveaways to the rich and the squeezing of welfare programs, sold the idea that the state is impotent and corrupt and the poor are lazy, and paved the way to the current stalemate of exploding inequality and angry inertia. Blinkered economics told us trade is good for everyone, and faster growth is everywhere. Blind economics missed the explosion in inequality all over...

Does it — really — take a model to beat a model? A critique yours truly sometimes encounters is that as long as I cannot come up with some own alternative model to the failing mainstream models, I shouldn’t expect people to pay attention. This is, however, to totally and utterly misunderstand the role of philosophy and methodology of economics! As John Locke wrote in An Essay Concerning Human Understanding: The Commonwealth of Learning is not at this time...

Why all the fuzz about trade? The share of US expenditure on imports is smaller than in most other countries. To a large extent, this reflects the fact that for a large country like the United States, a significant fraction of trade occurs intra- rather than internationally. This basic observation implies that that the welfare gains from international trade in the United States are smaller than in most other countries. Although magnitudes vary greatly...

Is economics — really — predictable? As Oskar Morgenstern noted already back in his 1928 classic Wirtschaftsprognose: Eine Untersuchung ihrer Voraussetzungen und Möglichkeiten, economic predictions and forecasts amount to little more than intelligent guessing. Making forecasts and predictions obviously isn’t a trivial or costless activity, so why then go on with it? The problems that economists encounter when trying to predict the future really underlines...

Charles Taylor über die Suche nach der perfekten Gemeinschaft  [embedded content]

How to teach econometrics Professor Swann (2019) seems implicitly to be endorsing the traditional theorem/proof style for teaching econometrics but with a few more theorems to be memorized. This style of teaching prepares students to join the monks in Asymptopia, a small pristine mountain village, where the monks read the tomes, worship the god of Consistency, and pray all day for the coming of the Revelation, when the estimates with an infinite sample will...

On the use of mathematics in economics Balliol Croft, Cambridge 27. ii. 06 My dear Bowley, I had a growing feeling in the later years of my work at the subject that a good mathematical theorem dealing with economic hypotheses was very unlikely to be good economics: and I went more and more on the rules — (1) Use mathematics as a short-hand language, rather than as an engine of inquiry. (2) Keep to them till you have done. (3) Translate into English. (4)...

Crasht im Jahr 2023 die Weltwirtschaft?  [embedded content]

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What went wrong with economics To be ‘analytical’ is something most people find recommendable. The word ‘analytical’ has a positive connotation. Scientists think deeper than most other people because they use ‘analytical’ methods. In dictionaries, ‘analysis’ is usually defined as having to do with “breaking something down.” But that’s not the whole picture. As used in science, analysis usually means something more specific. It means to separate a problem...