Lars P. Syll

So what do I mean by methodological arrogance? I mean an attitude that invokes micro-foundations as a methodological principle — philosophical reductionism in Popper’s terminology — while dismissing non-microfounded macromodels as unscientific. To be sure, the progress of science may enable us to reformulate (and perhaps improve) explanations of certain higher-level phenomena by expressing those relationships in terms of lower-level concepts. That is what Popper calls...

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The philosophy of lying Something repellent clings to the lie, and though the consciousness of this was indeed beaten into one with the old whip, this simultaneously said something about the master of the dungeon. The mistake lies in all too much honesty. Whoever lies, is ashamed, because in every lie they must experience what is degrading in the existing state of the world … Such shame saps the energy of the lies of those who are more subtly organized....

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Galbraith’s History of Economic Thought  [embedded content] div{float:left;margin-right:10px;} div.wpmrec2x div.u > div:nth-child(3n){margin-right:0px;} ]]> Advertisements

Stage 0. Late 1960’s. The Phelps volume, and Milton Friedman’s paper (pdf), both thinking about the microfoundations of the Phillips Curve, the difference between actual and expected inflation, and the role of monetary policy. This was the ancestral homeland of both New Keynesian and New Classical macroeconomics, which could not be distinguished at this stage … Stage 1. Mid 1970’s. Now we see the difference. A distinct New Keynesian approach emerges. New Keynesians assume that...

What is wrong with economic theory “A wonderful set of clearly written and highly informative essays by a scholar who is knowledgeable, critical and sharp enough to see how things really are in the discipline, and honest and brave enough to say how things are. A must read especially for those truly concerned and/or puzzled about the state of modern economics.” Tony Lawson Table of Contents Introduction What is (wrong with) economic theory? Capturing...

The myth of success   div{float:left;margin-right:10px;} div.wpmrec2x div.u > div:nth-child(3n){margin-right:0px;} ]]> Advertisements

Economics — nothing but an ideological paranoia  [embedded content] Economists have a tendency to get enthralled by their theories and models ​and forget that behind the figures and abstractions there is a real world with real people. Real people that have to pay dearly for fundamentally flawed doctrines and recommendations. Let’s make sure the consequences will rest on the conscience of those economists. div{float:left;margin-right:10px;}...

The eminently quotable Robert Solow says it all: To get right down to it, I suspect that the attempt to construct economics as an axiomatically based hard science is doomed to fail. There are many partially overlapping reasons for believing this … A modern economy is a very complicated system. Since we cannot conduct controlled on its smaller parts, or even observe them in isolation, the classical hard- science devices for discriminating between competing hypotheses are closed...