Lars P. Syll

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Why philosophy and methodology matter for economics A critique yours truly sometimes encounters is that as long as I cannot come up with some own alternative to the failing mainstream theory, 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...

Walter Duranty — Holodomor denier and lier One of the first Western Holodomor deniers was Walter Duranty, the winner of the 1932 Pulitzer prize in journalism … While the famine was raging, he wrote in the pages of The New York Times that “any report of a famine in Russia is today an exaggeration or malignant propaganda”, and that “there is no actual starvation or deaths from starvation, but there is widespread mortality from diseases due to malnutrition.”...

St. Crispin’s Day Speech  [embedded content]

Isak Skogstad och skolornas mobilelände Efter att ha varit ute och besökt en rad skolor under några veckors tid kan yours truly inte låta bli att fundera över saker man skulle vilja ändra och förbättra. Och en och annan undran kan man ju också kosta på sig. Som t ex varför vi i vårt land inte följt det franska beslutet att totalförbjuda mobiltelefoner i skolan. Och nej, jag VET att mobilförbud inte löser skolans alla problem. Ingen vettig människa har...

Collider attributes in graph theory (wonkish) Why would two independent variables suddenly become dependent when we condition on their common effect? To answer this question, we return again to the definition of conditioning as filtering by the value of the conditioning variable. When we condition on Z, we limit our comparisons to cases in which Z takes the same value. But remember that Z depends, for its value, on X and Y. So, when comparing cases where Z...

The essence of neoliberalism The neoliberal utopia evokes powerful belief – the free trade faith – not only among those who live off it, such as financiers, the owners and managers of large corporations, etc., but also among those, such as high-level government officials and politicians, who derive their justification for existing from it. For they sanctify the power of markets in the name of economic efficiency, which requires the elimination of...

What will it take for the euro to survive? [embedded content]

Wirtschaftsweise — ganz neue Töne Am Mittwoch hat der Sachverständigenrat zur Begutachtung der gesamtwirtschaftlichen Entwicklung sein Jahresgutachten vorgestellt … In diesem Gutachten nun wird das vielleicht wichtigste angebotspolitische Symbol einer kritischen Betrachtung unterzogen: die Schuldenbremse. Eine Mehrheit der Ratsmitglieder verteidigt sie zwar noch, aber diese Mehrheit ist stark geschrumpft. Von den fünf Räten sprechen sich nur drei für die...