Lars P. Syll

Economics for the 21st century 1. Change the goal: from GDP growth to the Doughnut. For over half a century, economists have fixated on GDP as the first measure of economic progress, but GDP is a false goal waiting to be ousted. The 21st century calls for a far more ambitious and global economic goal: meeting the needs of all within the means of the planet. Draw that goal on the page and – odd though it sounds – it comes out looking like a doughnut … 2. See...

Swiss sovereign money referendum  [embedded content] The people behind the proposal​ in Switzerland​ are effectively trying to get gold back into the monetary system. This is an extremely​ bad idea. Eighty-seven years ago Keynes could congratulate Great Britain on finally having got rid of the biggest ”barbarous relic” of his time – the gold standard. He lamented that advocates of the ancient standard do not observe how remote it now is from the spirit and...

 [embedded content] Vor 50 Jahren rebellierte die Jugend. Viele beriefen sich dabei auf Philosophen wie Theodor Adorno und Herbert Marcuse. Was haben uns diese Denker heute noch zu sagen? Ein Gespräch mit dem Historiker und Philosophen Philipp Felsch über die Meisterdenker von damals. Advertisements

Living high and feeling low High-altitude areas — particularly the US intermountain states — have increased rates of suicide and depression, suggests a review of research evidence in the Harvard Review of Psychiatry. The increased suicide rates might be explained by blood oxygen levels due to low atmospheric pressure, according to the article by Brent Michael Kious, MD, PhD, of University of Utah, Salt Lake City, and colleagues … They analyzed 12 studies,...

Niall Ferguson and​ conservative gaslighting Last week The Stanford Daily reported a curious story concerning Niall Ferguson, a conservative historian who is a fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution. The story itself, although ugly, isn’t that important. But it offers a window into a reality few people, certainly in the news media, are willing to acknowledge: the bad faith that pervades conservative discourse … Ferguson is, as it happens, one of those...

Den svenska skolans dödgrävare Sedan länge är det känt och påtalat att många av de utbildningar som bedrivs vid landets högskolor och universitet idag har en mager kost att leva på. Resultatet blir därefter – få lärarledda föreläsningar i rekordstora studentgrupper. Till detta kommer explosionen av nya studentgrupper som går vidare till universitetsstudier. Detta är på ett sätt klart glädjande. Idag har vi lika många doktorander i vårt utbildningssystem som...

Paul Krugman has a piece up on his blog arguing that the ‘discipline of modeling’ is a sine qua non for tackling politically and emotionally charged economic issues: You might say that the way to go about research is to approach issues with a pure heart and mind: seek the truth, and derive any policy conclusions afterwards. But that, I suspect, is rarely how things work. After all, the reason you study an issue at all is usually that you care about it, that there’s something...

I studien görs också en prognos av flyktinginvandringens, inklusive flykting-anhöriginvandringens, långsiktiga offentligfinansiella påverkan. Denna prognos utnyttjar det faktum att flyktingars sysselsättningsutveckling varit ganska stabil för varje givet ursprungsland för de flyktingar som anlänt de senaste 20 åren, vilket ökar rimligheten i ett antagande om att liknande sysselsättningsutveckling kommer att gälla också i framtiden. Som grund för prognosen används data från år...

AfD — ein Vogelschiss in der Geschichte  [embedded content] Advertisements

From Wicksell to Le Bourva and MMT Comparing the limited work of Wicksell, Le Bourva, and MMT, we find that they share many similarities. Obviously, the institutions and issues being discussed have changed during the decades these scholars were writing, yet all three views agree on some fundamental issues. The methodology is quite similar, with a strong focus on balance sheets opposed to theoretical models based on assumptions that are necessary for the...