Lars P. Syll

[embedded content] The balanced budget paradox is probably one of the most devastating phenomena haunting our economies. The harder politicians — usually on the advice of establishment economists — try to achieve balanced budgets for the public sector, the less likely they are to succeed in their endeavour. And the more the citizens have to pay for the concomitant austerity policies these wrong-headed politicians and economists recommend as “the sole solution.” One of the most...

The essence​ of scientific reasoning​ In science we standardly use a logically non-valid inference — the fallacy of affirming the consequent — of the following form: (1) p => q (2) q ————- p or, in instantiated form (1) ∀x (Gx => Px) (2) Pa ———— Ga Although logically invalid, it is nonetheless a kind of inference — abduction — that may be factually strongly warranted and truth-producing. Following the general pattern ‘Evidence  =>  Explanation...

Tanti saluti delle Cinque Terre  [embedded content] Advertisements

Il ritmo della passione  [embedded content] Advertisements

Der Zusammenhang zwischen Musikgeschmack und Intelligenz  [embedded content] Advertisements

Heard a couple of street guitarists play this classic outside Il Duomo di Milano earlier this evening. Still absolutely fabulous after all these years: [embedded content] Advertisements

Guest appearances in Hamburg, Zurich, Milan and Genoa. Regular blogging will be resumed in August. Advertisements

The standard NK [New Keynesian] model, like most of its predecessors in the RBC literature, represents an economy inhabited by an infinitely-lived representative household. That assumption, while obviously unrealistic, may be justified by the belief that, like so many other aspects of reality, the finiteness of life and the observed heterogeneity of individuals along many dimensions … can be safely ignored for the purposes of explaining aggregate fluctuations and their...

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Where modern macroeconomics went wrong In issue 1-2 (2018) of Oxford Review of Economic Policy, the editors have invited some well-known contemporary mainstream macroeconomists (including e.g. Simon Wren-Lewis, Randall Wright, Olivier Blanchard, Ricardo Reis, Joseph Stiglitz) to give their views on how to rebuild macroeconomic theory for the future. Some of the contributions are interesting to read. Others — like Wren-Lewis and Blanchard — seem to think...