Lars P. Syll

How to become a Keynesian Until [2008], when the banking industry came crashing down and depression loomed for the first time in my lifetime, I had never thought to read The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money, despite my interest in economics … I had heard that it was a very difficult book and that the book had been refuted by Milton Friedman … Baffled by the profession’s disarray, I decided I had better read The General Theory. Having done...

Central bank independence — a convenient illusion Today’s model of delegation has much to recommend it. But it should not be cloaked in euphemism. It is an abrogation of democratic sovereignty for pragmatic reasons, conditioned on the one hand by deeply entrenched and unflattering assumptions about electoral politics and, on the other, on an unquestioning acceptance of the private organization of credit markets and their lack of confidence in democratic...

La blague raciste qui pourrait coûter cher à Trump .[embedded content]

Can it be truthfully said that “internal borrowing shifts the war burden to future generations while taxing places it on the present generation”? A thousand times no! The present generation must still give up resources to produce the munitions hurled at the enemy. In the future, some of our grandchildren will be giving up goods and services to other grandchildren. That is the nub of the matter. The only way in which we can impose a direct burden on the future nation as a whole...

Biomedical, psychological, and social sciences are “soft” insofar as they focus on phenomena whose regularities are amorphous and situational (in contrast to the universal, exact laws which dominate physical sciences). In doing so, they must confront another major source of research uncertainty: Living organisms are characterized by natural variation and complex feedback within and across organisms, which introduces sampling variation or “noise” that we model as statistical...

Over the rainbow (personal) Spending a lovely weekend on our island in the Karlskrona​ archipelago my loved one took this beautiful picture of an autumn rainbow. Pure magic!

.[embedded content] Fish in the seaYou know how I feelRiver running freeYou know how I feelBlossom on a treeYou know how I feel Stars when you shineYou know how I feelScent of the pineYou know how I feelOh, freedom is mineAnd I know how I feel

I debatten om det finanspolitiska ramverket hörs ibland  argumentet att vi måste ha ett balansmål eftersom ett underskottsmål orättvist skulle belasta kommande generationer. Senast i veckan som gick vädrade ekonomiprofessorn Daniel Waldenström i en radiodebatt denna den politiska högerns populistiska favoritmyt. Offentliga skulder är normalt inget att frukta, särskilt om de finansieras inom landet (även utländska lån kan vara till nytta för ekonomin om de investeras på rätt...

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Varför talar ingen om detta? Enligt färsk statistik från SCB fortsätter arbetslösheten i Sverige att öka från en redan hög nivå. Justerat för säsongsvariationer ökade arbetslösheten från 8,3 procent i augusti till 8,6 procent i september. Detta om något borde vara en tydlig indikation på hur dåligt den ekonomiska politiken fungerar idag. Trots det lyser diskussioner om arbetslöshetens oacceptabelt höga nivå med sin frånvaro i våra medier. Inte minst mot...