Lars P. Syll

Unpacking the ‘Nobel prize’ in economics In a 2017 speech, Duflo famously likened economists to plumbers. In her view the role of an economist is to solve real world problems in specific situations. This is a dangerous assertion, as it suggests that the “plumbing” the randomistas are doing is purely technical, and not guided by theory or values. However, the randomistas’ approach to economics is not objective, value-neutral, nor pragmatic, but rather,...

Economists do not understand the economy  [embedded content]

Accumulate, accumulate! That is Moses and the prophets!  [embedded content] In the postwar period, it has become increasingly clear that economic growth has not only brought greater prosperity. The other side of growth, in the form of pollution, contamination, wastage of resources, and climate change, has emerged as perhaps the greatest challenge of our time. Against the mainstream theory’s view on the economy as a balanced and harmonious system, where...

A truly distinguished economist who knows what he is talking about  [embedded content]

‘Nobel prize’ winners Duflo and Banerjee do not tackle the real root causes of poverty Some go so far as to insist that development interventions should be subjected to the same kind of randomised control trials used in medicine, with “treatment” groups assessed against control groups. Such trials are being rolled out to evaluate the impact of a wide variety of projects – everything from water purification tablets to microcredit schemes, financial literacy...

Econometrics — junk science with no relevance whatsoever to real-world economics Do you believe that 10 to 20% of the decline in crime in the 1990s was caused by an increase in abortions in the 1970s? Or that the murder rate would have increased by 250% since 1974 if the United States had not built so many new prisons? Did you believe predictions that the welfare reform of the 1990s wouldforce 1,100,000 children into poverty? If you were misled by any of...

Seyla Benhabib und Rainer Forst über Habermas  [embedded content]

The experimental approach to global poverty  [embedded content]

 [embedded content]

L’un part, l’autre reste  [embedded content]