Lars P. Syll

Hannah Arendt im Gespräch  [embedded content] Advertisements

Ten theory of science books that should be on every economist’s reading​ list • Archer, Margaret (1995). Realist social theory: the morphogenetic approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press • Bhaskar, Roy (1978). A realist theory of science. Hassocks: Harvester • Cartwright, Nancy (2007). Hunting causes and using them. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press • Chalmers, Alan  (2013). What is this thing called science?. 4th. ed. Buckingham: Open...

One problem among social researchers is the tendency to view specificity and concreteness as equal to Science and Rigorous Thinking … But this ‘precision’ is often achieved only by analyzing​ surface causes because some of them are readily measured and operationalized. This​ is hardly sufficient reason for turning away from broad generalizations and causal principles. Advertisements

När jag ser de sista skälvande solstrålarna kasta sitt förföriska ljus och lysa upp mitt hem tycker jag mig ana det rofyllda gulaktiga nordiska skymningsljusets förmåga att försänka oss i en vag och obestämt transcendental känsla av existentiell mystik … Advertisements

Krugman on math and economics Another clip from my MasterClass (actually burn the *math*) pic.twitter.com/4BVyXNniLz — Paul Krugman (@paulkrugman) November 20, 2018 Yours truly have no problem with Krugman’s views on the use of math in this video in his recent tweet. I have said similar things myself for decades. But there is a BUT here … At other times Krugman — although admitting that economists have a tendency to use ”excessive math” and “equate hard...

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P-values are no substitute for thinking  [embedded content] A non-trivial part of statistics education is made up of teaching students to perform significance testing. A problem I have noticed repeatedly over the years, however, is that no matter how careful you try to be in explicating what the probabilities generated by these statistical tests really are, still most students misinterpret them. This is not to blame on students’ ignorance, but rather on...

Listen to BBC 4 where Duncan Weldon tries to explain in what way Hyman Minsky’s thoughts on banking and finance offer a radical challenge to mainstream economic theory. As a young research stipendiate in the U.S. yours truly had the great pleasure and privelege of having Hyman Minsky as teacher. He was a great inspiration at the time. He still is. Advertisements

Gender pay gap and transparency Es wird oft vermutet, dass mehr Transparenz hier Abhilfe schaffen könnte: Wenn alle wüssten, was alle verdienen – dann wären diese Unterschiede nicht länger haltbar. Die zu kurz Gekommenen würden protestieren, mehr fordern und so für mehr Gleichheit und Gerechtigkeit sorgen. Seit dem 6. Januar dieses Jahres haben Beschäftigte ein Recht darauf zu erfahren, wie viel Kollegen beziehungsweise Kolleginnen des jeweils anderen...

En av Sveriges främsta och mest uppslagsrika sociologer — Johan Asplund (1937-2018) har gått ur tiden. När yours truly som ung student på 1970-talet läste några betyg i sociologi, var en av mina stora inspirationskällor Johan Asplunds underbara lilla klassiker Om mättnadsprocesser (Argos 1967). Jag tror den känsla många av oss har inför samhällsutvecklingens “kvalitetsförbättringar” är inte så lite av “rulla ut röda mattan och rulla in den bakom oss.” Asplunds funderingar...