Lars P. Syll

Modern economics — confusing models with reality What does concern me about my discipline … is that its current core — by which I mainly mean the so-called dynamic stochastic general equilibrium approach — has become so mesmerized with its own internal logic that it has begun to confuse the precision it has achieved about its own world with the precision that it has about the real one … While it often makes sense to assume rational expectations for a...

Vinsttak löser inga som helst problem i svensk skola Sverige har blivit extremt. Extremt i fråga om offentlig finansiering av vinstdrivande skolföretag. Och extremt, om vi ska tro Pisa, bland OECD-länder vad gäller växande kunskapsklyftor. Det är lätt att förstå varför inget annat land har övervägt att kopiera oss. Den enda ledande politiker som jag har hört uttrycka sympati för den svenska skolmodellen är Donald Trumps utbildningsminister. Det faktum att...

Economics’ pretence of knowledge While in the physical sciences the investigator will be able to measure what, on the basis of a prima facie theory, he thinks important, in the social sciences often is treated as important that which happens to be accessible to measurement. This is sometimes carried to the point where it is demanded that our theories must be formulated in such terms that they refer only to measurable magnitudes. It can hardly be denied that...

Analysis of covariance (student stuff)  [embedded content] Advertisements

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...