Lars P. Syll

Berkson’s paradox or why attractive people you date tend​ to be jerks Have you ever noticed that, among the people you date, the attractive ones tend to be jerks? Instead of constructing elaborate psychosocial theories, consider a simpler explanation. Your choice of people to date depends on two factors, attractiveness and personality. You’ll take a chance on dating a mean attractive person or a nice unattractive person, and certainly a nice attractive...

Wage discrimination and the dangers of ‘controlling for’ confounders You see it all the time in studies. “We controlled for…” And then the list starts. The longer the better. Income. Age. Race. Religion. Height. Hair color. Sexual preference. Crossfit attendance. Love of parents. Coke or Pepsi. The more things you can control for, the stronger your study is — or, at least, the stronger your study seems. Controls give the feeling of specificity, of...

The cost of focusing on general equilibrium theory The largest problem with the economics profession’s focus on general equilibrium theory is the opportunity costs of that exploration. Important policy problems are not addressed. Consider Pareto optimality and the welfare theorems, which Fisher sees as the underpinnings of Western capitalism. In a world, such as ours, where property rights cannot be allocated effortlessly and costlessly, economist’s welfare...

Reformulating the economics curriculum Having gone through a handful of the most frequently used textbooks of economics at the undergraduate level today, I can only conclude that the models that are presented in these modern mainstream textbooks try to describe and analyze complex and heterogeneous real economies with a single rational-expectations-robot-imitation-representative-agent. That is, with something that has absolutely nothing to do with reality....

Uppdrag granskning och sveket mot våldtäktsoffren Yours truly såg idag ett intressant avsnitt av SvT:s Uppdrag granskning. Programmet handlade om att män födda i utlandet är kraftigt överrepresenterade bland de som dömts för att ha begått våldtäkt i Sverige — och, enkannerligen, om varför ledande svenska politiker och brottsforskare inte tyckt att det har varit viktigt eller speciellt intressant att statistiskt belägga våldtäktsmännens etnicitet. Skälet som...

August 21, 1968 — a date which will live in infamy  [embedded content]   Advertisements

Donald Rubin on randomization and observational studies  [embedded content] Advertisements

Unfortunately, nothing is more dangerous than dogmas donned with scientific feathers. The current crisis might offer an excellent occasion for a paradigm change, previously called for by prominent economists like John Maynard Keynes, Alan Kirman and Steve Keen. They have forcefully highlighted the shortcomings and contradictions of the classical economictheory, but progress has been slow. The task looks so formidable that some economists argue that it is better to stick with...

Steven Pinker — a cherry-picking​ Panglossian  [embedded content] Advertisements

Why most published research findings are false Instead of chasing statistical significance, we should improve our understanding of the range of R values — the pre-study odds — where research efforts operate. Before running an experiment, investigators should consider what they believe the chances are that they are testing a true rather than a non-true relationship. Speculated high R values may sometimes then be ascertained … Large studies with minimal bias...