Lars P. Syll

How mainstream economics treats us all as criminals For most mainstream economists a model is just a model and there are many models. Norms only enter into the picture in terms of clearly stated and testable components of models and models provide a means to explore the scope of theory. In principle, policy advocacy is supported by model findings and as such mainstream economists tend to start from the position that their work has the rigour and clarity of...

Economics — a science in need of a realist methodology What enables and yet constrains research? What is both medium and outcome of research? What do researchers reproduce without even knowing it? What is supposed to unite researchers but may divide them? What empowers researchers to speak but is never fully articulated? What is played out in the routine of research but can never be routinised? What is the responsibility of all researchers but for which...

Ainsi, la crise de 2008 a créé la surprise dans les rangs des économistes influents, qui croyaient voir le monde entrer au XXIe siècle dans le temps de « la grande modération » – c’est-à-dire la prévention des mouvements économiques erratiques grâce au pilotage « scientifique » des politiques monétaires … Cet épisode a sans conteste révélé une défaillance sévère du savoir économique … Pourquoi cette perte de confiance envers les analyses des économistes ? Nous vivons...

.[embedded content] Sublime, breathtaking, and absolutely magnificent. A choir of angels touching the depths of my soul. In loving memory of my parents-in-law, Ritva [† 2021] and Erik Syll [† 2020]

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Christine Lagarde must have been reading my blog … European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde launched a stinging attack on the economics profession on Wednesday (17 January), accusing analysts of having “blind faith” in their models, which often bear little connection to reality. Speaking at an event entitled “How to Trust Economics” at the World Economic Forum in Davos, the ECB chief also suggested that economists constitute a “tribal clique” whose...

Why quasi-experimental evaluations fail Evaluation research tends to be method-driven. Everything needs to be apportioned as an ‘input’ or ‘output’, so that the programme itself becomes a ‘variable’, and the chief research interest in it is to inspect the dosage in order to see that a good proper spoonful has been applied … The quasi-exprimental conception is again deficient. Communities clearly differ. They also have attributes that are not reducible to...

Design-based vs model-based inferences Following the introduction of the model-based inferential framework by Fisher and the introduction of the design-based inferential framework by Neyman [and Pearson], survey sampling statisticians began to identify their respective weaknesses. With regard to the model-based framework, sampling statisticians found that conditioning on all stratification and selection/recruitment variables, and allowing for their...

RCTs in the field of development — a critical perspective .[embedded content]

Are RCTs — really — the best way to establish causality? The best method is always the one that yields the most convincing and relevant answers in the context at hand. We all have our preferred methods that we think are underused. My own personal favorites are cross-tabulations and graphs that stay close to the data; the hard work lies in deciding what to put into them and how to process the data to learn something that we did not know before, or that...