Lars P. Syll

[embedded content]Twentyfive years ago I met this wonderful lady. As always, for you, Jeanette Meyer. “Though I speak with the tongues of angels, If I have not love… My words would resound with but a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy​… And understand all mysteries… and all knowledge… And though I have all faith So that I could remove mountains, If I have not love… I am nothing.”

Summers​ shameless assault on MMT First,​ it was Paul Krugman. Then came Kenneth Rogoff. And now Lawrence Summers has felt the urge to attack MMT and defend mainstream economics: There is widespread frustration with the performance of the economy … Altered economic conditions have led to the development of new economic ideas … And now, these new ideas are being oversimplified and exaggerated by fringe economists who hold them out as offering the proverbial...

Krugman a Keynesian? No way! In his critique of MMT the last couple of weeks, Krugman has claimed Stephanie Kelton and other MMTers have got things terribly wrong: Anyway, what actually happens at least much of the time – although, crucially, not when we’re at the zero lower bound – is more or less the opposite: political tradeoffs determine taxes and spending, and monetary policy adjusts the interest rate to achieve full employment without inflation. Under...

Economic ideas you should forget — the axioms of revealed preference The axioms of revealed preference have been part of the foundations of economics since they were formulated by Paul Samuelson in 1947. These principles allowed economists to continue to use the calculus of utilitarianism even though utilitarianism had ceased to be a fashionable philosophical doctrine. And they enabled economists to give a particular, and special, meaning to the term...

  [h/t Jeanette Meyer]

Wie Italiens extreme Rechte das Machtvakuum füllt  [embedded content]

Lettre ouverte à Alain Finkielkraut Vous vous êtes irrésistiblement tourné vers le Mal de notre époque: ne savoir opposer à l’universalité, abstraite et abjecte, du marché mondial capitaliste, que le culte, mortifère dès qu’il prétend avoir une valeur politique quelconque, des identités nationales, voire, dans votre cas, «ethniques», ce qui est pire. J’ajoute que votre instrumentation sur ce point de «la question juive» est la forme contemporaine de ce qui...

Handelshögskolan i Stockholm — maktelitens lekskola I en artikel på Dagens Nyheters debattsida … skriver nationalekonomerna och skolforskarna Magnus Henrekson och Jonas Vlachos att det skett en exceptionell utveckling när det gäller antalet elever som går ut med MVG … Fyra skolor lyfts fram som ger anmärkningsvärt höga slutbetyg: friskolorna Procivitas i Helsingborg, Viktor Rydberg Gymnasium i Djursholm och i Stockholm samt Enskilda Gymnasiet i Stockholm —...

Don’t mention the war  [embedded content]

Kelton and Krugman — MMT vs IS-LM Is there some reason the straightforward framework Krugman laid out is wrong? Yes, as even its creator went on to acknowledge. MMT rejects the IS-LM framework that Krugman uses to demonstrate the conclusion that widening budget deficits put upward pressure on interest rates and crowd out private investment. The model remains the workhorse for many mainstream Keynesians. MMT considers it fundamentally flawed … Keep this in...