Lars P. Syll

Om vådan av att läsa nationalekonomi För egen del … måste jag läsa lika nödvändigt som jag måste andas, och jag kan numera läsa så gott som allt som är någorlunda mänskligt skrivet och har innehåll … Men bestämda undantag finnas, som jag aldrig kommer att kunna bemästra; liksom vissa människor med god aptit bli sjuka vid tanken på ål eller må illa av musslor. Jag kan inte läsa juridik; inte heller nationalekonomi … Försöker jag mig på den sortens ting,...

The explanation paradox in economics Hotelling’s model, then, is false in all relevant senses … And yet, it is considered explanatory. Moreover, and perhaps more importantly, it feels explanatory. If we have not thought much about Hotelling’s kind of cases, it seems that we have genuinely learned something. We begin to see Hotelling situations all over the place. Why do electronics shops in London concentrate in Tottenham Court Road and music shops in...

The logic of economic models Analogue-economy models may picture Galilean thought experiments or they may describe credible worlds. In either case we have a problem in taking lessons from the model to the world. The problem is the venerable one of unrealistic assumptions, exacerbated in economics by the fact that the paucity of economic principles with serious empirical content makes it difficult to do without detailed structural assumptions. But the worry...

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In 2007 Chicago überpriest Thomas Sargent gave a graduation speech at University of California at Berkeley, giving the grads “a short list of valuable lessons that our beautiful subject teaches”: 1. Many things that are desirable are not feasible. 2. Individuals and communities face trade-offs. 3. Other people have more information about their abilities, their efforts, and their preferences than you do. 4. Everyone responds to incentives, including people you want to help. That...

Trösklar och statistisk signifikans I en artikel på Ekonomistas argumenterar nationalekonomen Robert Östling för att lösningen på den uppmärksammade ‘replikationskrisen’ är att ändra på tröskeln för vad som ska betraktas som ‘statistiskt signifikant’ från 5% till 0,5%. Även om detta i sig är vällovligt är det dock ingen lösning. Det räcker inte med att ändra godtyckliga nivåer för vad som ska anses vara ‘statistiskt signifikant’ eller ej. Det är inte där...

Chicago style response to critique   In a post up here earlier this week yours truly questioned the scientific value of Chicago economics. I took as an example the SMD theorem, that has unequivocally showed that there does not exist any condition by which assumptions on individuals would guarantee neither stability nor uniqueness of a general equilibrium solution — and that it, therefore, is intellectually dishonest to just go on pretending that it is still...

Georgescu-Roegen — the bioeconomic approach to climate change and growth Positivism does not seem to realize at all that the concept of verifiability — or that the position that ‘the meaning of a proposition is the method of its verification’ — is covered by a dialectical penumbra in spite of the apparent rigor of the sentences used in the argument … I hope the reader will not take offense at the unavoidable conclusion that most of the time all of us talk...

Teaching of economics — captured by a small and dangerous sect The fallacy of composition basically consists of the false belief that the whole is nothing but the sum of its parts.  In the society and in the economy this is arguably not the case. An adequate analysis of society and economy a fortiori can’t proceed by just adding up the acts and decisions of individuals. The whole is more than a sum of parts. This fact shows up when mainstream economics...

John Searle — a sexual harasser John Searle, formerly a professor emeritus in UC Berkeley’s Department of Philosophy, has had his emeritus status revoked, along with all the privileges of that title, following a determination that he violated university policies against sexual harassment and retaliation. This action permanently removes him from the university community. He will not be eligible to teach, work with graduate students, maintain office space or...