Lars P. Syll

It’s high time to bury Milton Friedman’s natural rate hypotheis Fifty years ago Milton Friedman wrote an (in)famous article arguing that (1) the natural rate of unemployment was independent of monetary policy and that (2) trying to keep the unemployment rate below the natural rate would only give rise to higher and higher inflation. The hypothesis has always been controversial, and much theoretical and empirical work has questioned the real-world relevance...

Trump’s bogus claims on the economy  [embedded content] Advertisements

Stat och politiker har svikit landets alla skolelever 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...

The problem with charter schools? They don’t work!  [embedded content] Advertisements

Trump’s Nixon Moment getting closer  [embedded content] Advertisements

What is (wrong with) neoclassical economics? If you want to know what is “neoclassical economics” and turn to Wikipedia you are told that neoclassical economics is a term variously used for approaches to economics focusing on the determination of prices, outputs, and income distributions in markets through supply and demand, often mediated through a hypothesized maximization of utility by income-constrained individuals and of profits by cost-constrained...

Minimum wage à la Germany Trotz der auch im Jahr 2016 noch anhaltenden deutlichen Lohnsteigerungen im Niedriglohnbereich gibt es nach wie vor ein Problem mit weitverbreiteten Umgehungen des gesetzlichen Mindestlohns. Werden bei der Stundenlohn-Berechnung die vertragliche Arbeitszeit und bezahlte Überstunden des Vormonats zugrunde gelegt, erhalten 9,8% der Beschäftigten den Mindestlohn nicht, obwohl sie einen Anspruch darauf hätten. In absoluten Zahlen...

The relation of knowledge to power is one not only of servility but of truth. Much knowledge, if out of pro­portion to the disposition of forces, is invalid, however formally correct it may be.If an émigré doctor says: ‘For me … is a patological case’, his pronouncement may ultimately be con­firmed by clinical findings, but its incongruity with the objective calamity visited on the world in the name of that paranoiac renders the diagnosis ridiculous, mere professional...

Why are women paid less than men?  [embedded content] Advertisements

On probabilism and statistics ‘Mr Brown has exactly two children. At least one of them is a boy. What is the probability that the other is a girl?’ What could be simpler than that? After all, the other child either is or is not a girl. I regularly use this example on the statistics courses I give to life scientists working in the pharmaceutical industry. They all agree that the probability is one-half. So they are all wrong. I haven’t said that the older...