Lars P. Syll

Emma Frans och konsten att skilja vetenskap från trams Emma Frans’ med rätta prisbelönta bok Larmrapporten är en rolig, kunnig och ack så nödvändig uppgörelse med allehanda pseudo-vetenskapligt trams som sköljer över oss i media nuförtiden. Inte minst i sociala media sprids en massa ‘alternativa fakta’ och nonsens. Även om jag varmt rekommederat studenter, vänner och bekanta att läsa boken, kan jag dock inte låta bli att här — bland mestadels akademiskt...

Randomization — a philosophical device gone astray When giving courses in the philosophy of science yours truly has often had David Papineau’s book Philosophical Devices (OUP 2012) on the reading list. Overall it is a good introduction to many of the instruments used when performing methodological and science theoretical analyses of economic and other social sciences issues. Unfortunately, the book has also fallen prey to the randomization hype that...

Top 10 RCT critiques •Basu, Kaushik (2014) Randomisation, Causality and the Role of Reasoned Intuition •Cartwright, Nancy  (2010) What are randomised controlled trials good for? •Cartwright, Nancy & Hardie, Jeremy (2012) Evidence-Based Policy: A Practical Guide to Doing It Better •Deaton, Angus (2009 ) Instruments of development: Randomization in the tropics, and the search for the elusive keys to economic development •Deaton, Angus &...

Fammi abbracciare una donna (personal) [embedded content]As always, for you, Jeanette Meyer. Though I speak with the tongues of angels, If I have not love … My words would resound with but a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy ​… And understand all mysteries … and all knowledge … And though I have all faith So that I could remove mountains, If I have not love … I am nothing. Advertisements...

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Randomized experiments — a dangerous idolatry Nowadays many mainstream economists maintain that ‘imaginative empirical methods’ — especially randomized experiments (RCTs) — can help us to answer questions concerning the external validity of economic models. In their view, they are, more or less, tests of ‘an underlying economic model’ and enable economists to make the right selection from the ever-expanding ‘collection of potentially applicable models.’...

DSGE models are missing the point In a recent attempt to defend DSGE modelling, Lawrence Christiano, Martin Eichenbaum and Mathias Trabandt have to admit that DSGE models have failed to predict financial crises. The reason they put forward for this is that the models did not “integrate the shadow banking system into their analysis.” That certainly is true — but the DSGE problems go much deeper than that: A typical modern approach to writing a paper in DSGE...

Mill provides a good illustration of the tension between fallibilism and anti-foundationalism​. Mill’s first principles are supposed to be empirical and not necessary truths, but for economics to be an empirical subject at all, they have to be beyond genuine doubt, since they provide the only empirical element in an otherwise deductive system. The certainty that Mill claims for the results of scientific economics are purchased with deep uncertainty about the significance of...

Trump’s robber baron presidency  [embedded content] In Trump’s world, ​the rich in the US obviously are not rich enough. So he has set out to lower the corporate tax rate to 20 percent and abolish the estate tax. Trump’s vision for the US​ is an unregulated and immensely unequal​ country. The working and middle classes are, of course, überjoyed … Advertisements

Why Krugman and Stiglitz are no real alternatives to mainstream economics Little in the discipline has changed in the wake of the crisis. Mirowski thinks that this is at least in part a result of the impotence of the loyal opposition — those economists such as Joseph Stiglitz or Paul Krugman who attempt to oppose the more viciously neoliberal articulations of economic theory from within the camp of neoclassical economics. Though Krugman and Stiglitz have...