Lars P. Syll

Mark Lilla and the identity politics trap ZEIT: Warum führt Identitätspolitik überhaupt zu dieser Stärkung des Identitätsbegriffes? Lief die Ursprungsidee nicht auf das Gegenteil hinaus – auf die Dekonstruktion von Identität? Lilla: Man findet beides. Wobei “Dekonstruktion” natürlich nur was für reiche Kinder aus der Bourgeoisie ist, die an wahnsinnig teuren Eliteuniversitäten studieren. Die sind die Einzigen auf der Welt, die sich für Dekonstruktion...

Jämviktsarbetslöshet — ett farligt och missvisande mått med kända brister Trots, eller kanske tack vare, de goda utsikterna varnar flera bankekonomer för att ekonomin nu är på väg in i en överhettning. Konjunkturinstitutet (KI) uttrycker oro över att finanspolitiken riskerar bli för expansiv. Myndigheten menar att budgetmålet riskerar att inte hålla samtidigt som det råder brist på strukturella reformer för att minska arbetslösheten på sikt. Trots sjunkande...

CNN on the real ‘shithole’ and his allies  [embedded content] Advertisements

What should we do with econometrics? Econometrics … is an undoubtedly flawed paradigm. Even putting aside the myriad of technical issues with misspecification and how these can yield results that are completely wrong, after seeing econometric research in practice I have become skeptical of the results it produces. Reading an applied econometrics paper could leave you with the impression that the economist (or any social science researcher) first formulated...

Steven Pinker on political correctness  [embedded content] It really says something truly depressing about our times when this kind of self-evident things have to be said … Advertisements

Deaton-Cartwright-Senn-Gelman on the limited value of randomization In Social Science and Medicine (December 2017), Angus Deaton & Nancy Cartwright argue that RCTs do not have any warranted special status. They are, simply, far from being the ‘gold standard’ they are usually portrayed as: Randomized Controlled Trials (RCTs) are increasingly popular in the social sciences, not only in medicine. We argue that the lay public, and sometimes researchers, put...

Neoclassical economics is great — if it wasn’t for all the caveats! I think that modern neoclassical economics is in fine shape as long as it is understood as the ideological and substantive legitimating doctrine of the political theory of possessive individualism. As long as we have relatively-self-interested liberal individuals who have relatively-strong beliefs that things are theirs, the competitive market in equilibrium is an absolutely wonderful...

Simon Wren-Lewis — anti-pluralist mainstream flimflam defender Again and again, Oxford professor Simon Wren-Lewis rides out to defend orthodox macroeconomic theory against attacks from heterodox critics. In his latest attack on heterodox economics and students demanding pluralist economics education he writes: The danger in encouraging plurality is that you make it much easier for politicians to select the advice they like, because there is almost certain...

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Daniel Ellsberg on Donald Trump and The Pentagon Papers Daniel Ellsberg. Bravest of the brave. Never give in. Never give up.  [embedded content][embedded content] Advertisements