Lars P. Syll

Luc Ferry et les maths  [embedded content] Advertisements

Haavelmo and Frisch on the limited value of econometrics For the sake of balancing the overly rosy picture of econometric achievements given in the usual econometrics textbooks today, it may be interesting to see how Trygve Haavelmo — with the completion (in 1958) of the twenty-fifth volume of Econometrica — assessed the role of econometrics in the advancement of economics. Although mainly positive of the “repair work” and “clearing-up work” done, Haavelmo...

Macron et le respect  [embedded content] Fort avec les faibles, faible avec les forts. Advertisements

Politische Korrektheit — Nein, danke! Ich bin, und zwar von ganzem Herzen, Schriftstellerin, Reisejournalistin, Literaturver-anstalterin und Weltreisende – und in allen diesen meinen Inkarnationen nagt die Political Correctness zunehmend an meinen Fundamenten. Nicht zuletzt an meinen Idealen: Aufklärung. Gleichberechtigung. Empathie und eine Mitmenschlichkeit, die blind ist für Kategorien wie Ethnie, Gender, Herkunft. War PC nicht einst, vor ihrer...

Why the euro cannot be saved The euro may be approaching another crisis. Italy, the eurozone’s third largest economy, has chosen what can at best be described as a Euroskeptic government. This should surprise no one. The backlash in Italy is another predictable (and predicted) episode in the long saga of a poorly designed currency arrangement, in which the dominant power, Germany, impedes the necessary reforms and insists on policies that exacerbate the...

The Bells of Dawn [embedded content] Dmitri Hvorostovsky — Дми́трий Хворосто́вский 1962 – 2017 RIP Advertisements

Noah Smith’s unicorn defence​ of economics Unlike the old neoclassical theories, game theory concerns strategic interaction between different people. It can encompass things like wage bargaining, fraud and lots of other things that neoclassical equilibrium glosses over or leaves out.  And in game theory, free markets full of rational actors can easily, even regularly, lead to inefficient outcomes that require government intervention. Noah Smith/Bloomberg...

How to be a great economist The master-economist must possess a rare combination of gifts …​ He must be mathematician, historian, statesman, philosopher—in some degree. He must understand symbols and speak in words. He must contemplate the particular, in terms of the general, and touch abstract and concrete in the same flight of thought. He must study the present in the light of the past for the purposes of the future. No part of man’s nature or his...

Nils Landgren (trombone) & Esbjörn Svensson (piano). It breaks my heart every time I play this music and I am reminded Esbjörn is no longer with us. Thank goodness your music lives on, Esbjörn. [embedded content] Advertisements

 [embedded content] Advertisements