Lars P. Syll

Public trust in economists People are obviously not so impressed by the “queen of the social sciences”. And rightly so. Mainstream economics today is more like an ideological-religious conviction than a realist and relevant social science that people can trust for making their lifes or societies better.

HARDtalk with Esther Duflo [embedded content] This year’s ‘Nobel prize’ winners think that economics should be based on evidence from randomised experiments and field studies. Duflo et consortes want to give up on ‘big ideas’ like political economy and institutional reform and instead go for solving more manageable problems the way plumbers do. Yours truly is far from sure that is the right way to move economics forward and make it a relevant and realist...

[embedded content] Marie Fredriksson (1958-2019). A great singer and fighter has passed away. Your soulful and sensitive voice will live on forever. Thanks for everything. A thing of beauty is a joy forever

2019 ‘Nobel prize’ reveals the poverty of economics RCTs have delivered intriguing insights into how poor people think and act, but also into how behavioural economists do. For example, when a slew of high-profile RCTs failed to deliver the evidence that researchers expected on the ‘miracle of microfinance’, the researchers paid little heed to the implications of their insignificant and sometimes even negative findings. Instead, they focused attention onto...

Dagens ekonomiutbildningar måste bli mer verklighetsanknutna och framför allt lära ut den roll som pengaskapare som bankväsendet har i ekonomin – om vi ska undvika framtida kriser. Professorer och Lärarkårer på Ekonomiutbildningar, Banker och deras roll i skapandet av pengar är en väsentlig del av moderna, finansialiserade ekonomier. Likväl ges dagens ekonomistudenter en långtifrån fullgod bild av saken. Som personer med makt att påverka nästa generation ekonomer, är det av...

Uber’s gender pay gap study Uber has conducted a study of internal pay differentials between men and women, which they describe as “gender blind” … The study found a 7% pay gap in favor of men. They present their findings as proof that there are issues unrelated to gender that impact driver pay. They quantify the reasons for the gap as follows: Where: 20% is due to where people choose to drive (routes/neighborhoods). Experience: 30% is due to experience …...

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The ergodicity problem in economics (wonkish) A surprising reframing of economic theory follows directly from asking the core ergodicity question: is the time average of an observable equal to its expectation value? At a crucial place in the foundations of economics, it is assumed that the answer is always yes — a pernicious error. To make economic decisions, I often want to know how fast my personal fortune grows under different scenarios. This requires...

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Häften för Kritiska Studier har fyllt 50 År 1968 utkom det första numret av Häften för kritiska studier. Under de femtio år som gått sedan dess har mer än 200 nummer utkommit. För att fira detta tog några av tidskriftens redaktions-medlemmar ett initiativ till en jubileumsskrift som kommer ut nästa månad. Yours truly har ett bidrag med i skriften och tänkte därför ta tillfället i akt att säga något lite mer personligt om denna fantastiska tidskrift som...