Lars P. Syll

On the use and misuse of randomisation [embedded content] ‘Ideally controlled experiments’ tell us with certainty what causes what effects — but only given the right ‘closures.’ Making appropriate extrapolations from (ideal, accidental, natural or quasi) experiments to different settings, populations or target systems, is not easy. “It works there” is no evidence for “it will work here”. Causes deduced in an experimental setting still have to show that they...

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Poem of the atoms   [embedded content] O day, arise! The atoms are dancing. Thanks to Him the universe is dancing. The souls are dancing, overcome with ecstasy. I’ll whisper in your ear where their dance is taking them. All the atoms in the air and in the desert know well, they seem insane. Every single atom, happy or miserable, Becomes enamoured of the sun, of which nothing can be said. Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī (1207-1273)

Qu’est-ce que l’économie de l’attention ? C’est celle qui cherche à capter votre temps de cerveau disponible sur un écran. Or, selon un calcul effectué par Google, ce temps serait de neuf secondes pour la génération des personnes nées entre 1980 et 2000. Au-delà, le cerveau décroche et un nouveau stimulus est nécessaire pour capter leur concentration … Bruno Patino raisonne en économiste et note qu’« à la main invisible du marché a été substituée, celle du réseau ». « On ne...

Simon Wren-Lewis is obviously upset because some MMTers have called his economic policy proposals (providing the theoretical foundation for Labour’s Fiscal Credibility Rule) “neoliberal”. Neoliberal or not, what he does have to say about MMT and his own mainstream economics makes it clear what the debate really comes down to: MMT’s key idea is that fiscal policy (changing taxes and government spending) is better suited to stabilise the macroeconomy than a central bank setting...

Substantive relevance — not ‘clever’ design — is what matters most in science  [embedded content] If anything, Snow’s path-breaking research underlines how important it is not to equate science with statistical calculation. And that the value of ‘as-if’ random interventions and experiments ultimately depend on the degree to which they if shed light on substantive and interesting scientific questions. All science entail human judgement, and using statistical...

Causal inference and the rhetoric of imaginary populations (wonkish) The most expedient population and data generation model to adopt is one in which the population is regarded as a realization of an infinite super population. This setup is the standard perspective in mathematical statistics, in which random variables are assumed to exist with fixed moments for an uncountable and unspecified universe of events … This perspective is tantamount to assuming a...

Thomas Piketty et l’illusion de l’écologie centriste Tout indique de plus en plus clairement que la résolution du défi climatique ne pourra se faire sans un puissant mouvement de compression des inégalités sociales, à tous les niveaux. Avec l’ampleur actuelle des inégalités, la marche en avant vers la sobriété énergétique restera un vœu pieux. D’abord parce que les émissions carbone sont fortement concentrées parmi les plus riches. Au niveau mondial, les...

So what do I mean by methodological arrogance? I mean an attitude that invokes micro-foundations as a methodological principle — philosophical reductionism in Popper’s terminology — while dismissing non-microfounded macromodels as unscientific. To be sure, the progress of science may enable us to reformulate (and perhaps improve) explanations of certain higher-level phenomena by expressing those relationships in terms of lower-level concepts. That is what Popper calls...

The LOGIC of science vs the METHODS of science  [embedded content]