Lars P. Syll

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...

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A night at the Roxbury  [embedded content] Advertisements

Jordan Peterson lecturing an incompetent journalist on gender inequality When discussing things it is definitely good to know what you are talking about. A good rule that certainly also applies to journalists …  [embedded content] Advertisements

Paul Romer leaves the World Bank Outspoken chief economist Paul Romer is leaving the World Bank “effective immediately” after just 15 months on the job, the bank’s president told staff on Wednesday in an internal announcement seen by the Financial Times. Mr Romer, one of the US’s most celebrated economists, had been engaged in a running battle with staff economists at the bank almost since his high-profile arrival in October 2016. Areas of dispute have...

Jerome H. Powell sailed to Senate confirmation on Tuesday to become the 16th chairman of the Federal Reserve with a final vote of 84 to 13 … The bipartisan support for Mr. Powell was a sharp break from another Fed hearing earlier on Tuesday, when Mr. Brown and other Democrats questioned the qualifications of Marvin Goodfriend, a conservative economist nominated by Mr. Trump for a seat on the Fed’s board. Mr. Goodfriend repeatedly predicted after the 2008 financial crisis that...