Lars P. Syll

What instrumental​ variables analysis is all about  [embedded content] Advertisements

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Om vi hade en dag (personal)   [embedded content] Advertisements

 [embedded content] The reckless, untruthful, outrageous, incompetent & undignified buffoon Donald Trump is debasing the nation day after day. A grandmother — Liz DeCou — gets arrested in California for attempting to deliver toys and books to migrant children separated from their parents at the border. Sickening to see how decent people are being treated. Advertisements

In his new history of experimental social science — Randomistas: How radical researchers are changing our world — Andrew Leigh gives an introduction to the RCT (randomized controlled trial) method for conducting experiments in medicine, psychology, development economics, and policy evaluation. Although it mentions there are critiques that can be waged against it, the author does not let that shadow his overwhelmingly enthusiastic view on RCT. Among mainstream economists, this...

Econometrics cannot establish the truth value of a fact. Never has. Never will. There seems to be a pervasive human aversion to uncertainty, and one way to reduce feelings of uncertainty is to invest faith in deduction as a sufficient guide to truth. Unfortunately, such faith is as logically unjustified as any religious creed, since a deduction produces certainty about the real world only when its...

The illusion of certainty  [embedded content] Advertisements

Why a monetary union cannot work without also being a political union Foreseeing the future is difficult. But sometimes it seems as though some people get it terribly right … Some day the nations of Europe may be ready to merge their national identities and create a new European Union – the United States of Europe. If and when they do, a European Government will take over all the functions which the Federal government now provides in the U.S., or in Canada...

The mess at the heart of the EU The EU establishment has been held to account for the euro mess, for austerity policies that turned recession into depression, for the galloping inequality, and for the millions and millions of unemployed. The EU austerity policies bread understandable and righteous anger — but also ugly far-right xenophobic political movements taking advantage of the frustration that austerity policies inevitably produce. Ultimately this...

My finest hour — Sweden’s euro referendum Fifteen years ago, Swedish citizens were asked if they wanted to join the eurozone. Of the 83 % registered voters who participated in the referendum close to 57 % cast their ballot for the ‘no’ side. The result of the referendum came as a total shock to the Swedish establishment. All major parties and business organizations were for the euro.But although the ‘yes’ side outspent the ‘no’ side ten to one, the ‘no’...