Lars P. Syll

Cose della vita (personal)  [embedded content] Yours truly lived in Florence back in 1987, trying to improve my Italian. Although I, unfortunately,​ haven’t had much time to keep up my use of that ‘bella lingua’ — reading Sraffa, Pasinetti and Garegnani in original don’t​ quite count — songs like this brings back sweet memories from a spectacularly​ beautiful town full of history and adventures. Sto pensando ancora a te …

Clearly, neoclassical economists believe that neoclassical microeconomic theory is theoretically coherent and provides the best explanation of economic activity; therefore there is no good reason to not teach it, if not exclusively. Many heterodox economists also broadly agree with this position, although not with all the particulars. However, sufficient evidence exists showing that as a whole neoclassical microeconomic theory is theoretically incoherent and without empirical...

Nach dem Auftauchen des Ibiza-Videos von Vizekanzler und FPÖ-Chef Heinz-Christian Strache hat Bundeskanzler Sebastian Kurz (ÖVP) mit den Worten “genug ist genug” gekündigt vorgezogene Neuwahlen an. [embedded content]

Berühmt ist das Land aber nicht nur für Volvo-Autos und Ikea-Möbel, sondern vor allem für sein Modell eines extrem fürsorglichen Sozialstaats. In den USA gilt das Land mit seinen hohen Steuern und üppigen Sozialleistungen daher als Musterbeispiel für einen Sozialismus skandinavischer Prägung. Dabei hat in den vergangenen Jahren die raue Wirklichkeit auch in Schweden Einzug gehalten. Krankenhäuser, ja sogar Schulen wurden privatisiert, kommunale Einrichtungen wie Freibäder...

Data without theory is always treacherous Data without theory can lead to bogus inferences … Before being comforted or alarmed, consider whether it makes sense to extrapolate. Is there a persuasive reason why the future can be predicted simply by looking at the past? Or is that wishful thinking? Or nothing at all? … Remember that even random flips can yield striking, even stunning, patterns that mean nothing at all … A statistical comparison of two things...

Chicago economics — garbage in, gospel out Every dollar of increased government spending must correspond to one less dollar of private spending. Jobs created by stimulus spending are offset by jobs lost from the decline in private spending. We can build roads instead of factories, but fiscal stimulus can’t help us to build more of both. This form of “crowding out” is just accounting, and doesn’t rest on any perceptions or behavioral assumptions. John...

Det fria skolvalet — lär av Chile! Att åka till Chile och prata om skolreformer är verkligen som att åka till ett spegelland till Sverige. Systemet och de politiska diskussionerna är så oerhört lika. Men så var Chile också det enda land som tillsammans med oss på allvar testade Rose och Milton Friedmans idéer om skola som en marknad med vinstintressen. I Chiles fall var det eftersom amerikanska ekonomer efter den USA-stödda alliansen fick tillgång till en...

Horace Engdahl — en gnällig streber och überpretto När Engdahl galopperar iväg till sin strid med tidens väderkvarnar strör han generöst omkring sig klokheter om hur världen och könen är beskaffade. En världsbild målas upp där den sexuella konkurrensen män emellan är författarens … livsluft. Ja, all intellektuell verksamhet och kulturell strävan tycks i grund och botten handla om pittmätning … Att läsa boken känns som att träda in i en herrklubb där dammet...

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Don’t think like a freak In their latest book, Think Like a Freak, co-authors Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner tell a story about meeting David Cameron in London before he was Prime Minister. They told him that the U.K.’s National Health Service — free, unlimited, lifetime health care — was laudable but didn’t make practical sense. “We tried to make our point with a thought experiment,” they write … Rather than seeing the humor and realizing that health...