Lars P. Syll

O Nuit! Viens apporter à la terre le calme enchantement de ton mystère  [embedded content]

Econometrics — a con art with no relevance whatsoever to real world economics Econometrics looks “sciency”. Once in a seminar presentation I displayed two equations, one taken from Econometrica and the other from the Journal of Theoretical and Experimental Physics and challenged the audience to tell me which is which. No one volunteered to tell me which is which, including at least one hard-core econometrician. Economics is a social science where the...

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Bei mir bist du scheen  [embedded content]

Realism and critique in economics: an interview with Lars P. Syll Jamie Morgan: To a member of the public it must seem weird that it is possible to state, as you do, such fundamental criticism of an entire field of study. The perplexing issue from a third party point of view is how do we reconcile good intention (or at least legitimate sense of self as a scholar), and power and influence in the world with error, failure and falsity in some primary sense;...

Ça plane pour moi  [embedded content]

Paul Samuelson — a case of badly invested intelligence Paul Samuelson claimed that the ‘ergodic hypothesis’ is essential for advancing economics from the realm of history to the realm of science. But is it really tenable to assume that ergodicity is essential to economics? The answer can only be — as I have argued here here here here and here — NO WAY! Obviously yours truly is far from the only researcher being critical of Paul Samuelson. This is what Ole...

Scientific advancement in economics Source

Minimal realism — much ado about nothing To generalise Mäki’s distinction between realism and realisticness, someone who believes that economic theories must or should include unrealistic assumptions is not necessarily a non-realist in the broader sense of philosophical realism: “A realist economist is permitted, indeed required, to use unrealistic assumptions in order to isolate what are believed to be the most essential features in a complex situation …...