Lars P. Syll

L’intelligence humaine est en déclin .[embedded content] Comme le montre ce programme, il y a vraiment de nombreux signes que l’intelligence humaine est en déclin. Ce déclin est probablement le résultat d’une convergence de facteurs sociaux et culturels. L’une des principales raisons est la dépendance croissante à la technologie. Alors que les avancées technologiques ont indéniablement amélioré notre qualité de vie, elles ont également créé une génération...

The Road Not Taken We all heterodox economists who have chosen the road ‘less traveled by’ know that this choice comes at a price. Fewer opportunities to secure ample research funding or positions at prestigious institutes or universities. Nevertheless, I believe that very few of us regret our choices. One doesn’t bargain with one’s conscience. No amount of money or prestige in the world can replace the feeling of looking in the mirror and liking what one...

Evidently, however, the potential for the strictly natural natural experimental approach, which relies exclusively on natural events as instruments, is constrained by the small number of random events provided by nature and by the fact that most outcomes of interest are the result of many factors associated with preferences, technologies, and markets. And the prospect of the discovery of new and useful natural events is limited … It is clear that the number of natural...

For a ‘churchyard romantic’ like yours truly, a visit to Alter Friedhof Prenzlauer Allee is, of course, a must when in Berlin …

Touring again. Guest appearance​​ in Berlin. When there, yours truly always visits Walter-Benjamin-Platz (close to Kurfürstendamm, between Leibnizstraße and Wielandstraße). Interesting architecture and a couple of excellent restaurants and cafés. Regular blogging to be resumed next week.

Mainstream economics — a methodological strait-jacket Jamie Morgan: To a member of the public it must seem weird that it is possible to state, as you do, such fundamental criticism of an entire field of study. The perplexing issue from a third party point of view is how do we reconcile good intention (or at least legitimate sense of self as a scholar), and power and influence in the world with error, failure and falsity in some primary sense; given that the...

Instrumental Variables — The Good and the Bad .[embedded content] Making appropriate extrapolations from (ideal, natural or quasi) experiments to different settings, populations or target systems, is not easy. “It works there” is no evidence for “it will work here.” The causal background assumptions made have to be justified, and without licenses to export, the value of ‘rigorous’ and ‘precise’ methods used when analyzing ‘natural experiments’ is often...

Finding the Money follows economist Stephanie Kelton on an exploration of Modern Monetary Theory. Also appearing in the movie are Pavlina R. Tcherneva, L. Randall Wray, Mathew Forstater and Fadhel Kaboub. Soon coming to a theatre near you!

Woke cancel culture — a threat to our universities Philosophy professor Kathleen Stock has been actively engaged in ongoing discussions about gender identity and transgender issues for a long time. In these discussions, she has expressed scepticism and concern about certain aspects of transgender ideology, particularly in relation to gender identity and its implications for women’s rights and spaces. Stock has argued that the concept of gender identity...

‘New Keynesian’ macroeconomics — worse than useless I have tried to document how the practitioners of the self-proclaimed ‘science of monetary policy’ have gone out of their way to salvage their paradigm—after the inflationary surge of 2021-2023 made it clear that the New Keynesian emperor was not wearing any clothes. All their elaborate tools and instruments, including the output gap, the unemployment gap, the New Keynesian Phillips curve and...