Lars P. Syll

How to get published in top economics journals … The reality is that the mainstream follow a formulaic approach to publications in macroeconomics that goes something like this: Assert without foundation – so-called micro-foundations – rationality, maximisation, rational expectations – imposed assumptions about human behaviour that no sociologist or psychologist would remotely recognise. These foundations cannot deal with real world people so assume there is...

Der Himmel über Berlin  [embedded content]

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Can a Central Bank ever run out of money?  [embedded content] (h/t: Stephanie Kelton)

Mainstream nonsense about budget deficits The standard mainstream textbook argument about budget deficits goes something like this: Assume that total output is given. If government expenditures are increased, then this has to be met by an equally large decrease in investment, which can only come forth by rising interest rates. ‘Crowding out’ reduces public saving and causes interest rates to rise. Then, applying the logic of the Solow growth model, it is...

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Is MMT nothing but Knapp + Lerner + Minsky + Vertical IS curve? Turning to Brad’s challenge, some of the answers will now be obvious. Do we accept the elements he lists as fundamental to MMT? Knapp: yes indeed. He’s always been there … Lerner: dealt with above. What we reject is the aggregate demand approach to full employment and price (and financial) stability. As Minsky argued in the 1960s, pump-priming might get you to full employment but it will never...

One of my favourite libraries The City Library of my hometown — Malmö — is an architectural gem. Surrounded by splendid views of the idyllic park setting — and with its extensive collection of foreign language books, journals and newspapers — it is well worth visiting any day of the year!

How to make economics a relevant science again Economists are struggling to explain recent productivity developments, the implications of rising inequality, the impact of persistently negative interest rates in the eurozone … and the sudden slowdown in European growth … None of this is a huge surprise, given the profession’s embrace of simplistic theoretical assumptions and excessive reliance on mathematical techniques that prize elegance over real-world...

MMT and heterodoxy — necessary for the renewal of economics A sense of failure is, for all intents and purposes, being translated into a context of relative success requiring more limited changes – though these are still being seen as significant. Part of the reason that they are seen as significant is that changes from within mainstream economics do not have to be major in order to appear radical. It is our contention that heterodox economics is being...