Lars P. Syll

Harvard economist and George Bush advisor Greg Mankiw is one of many mainstream economists who has been appealing to the education variable to explain the rising inequality we have seen for the last 30 years in both the US and elsewhere in Western societies. Writes Mankiw: Even if the income gains are in the top 1 percent, why does that imply that the right story is not about education?… If indeed a year of schooling guaranteed you precisely a 10 percent increase in earnings,...

Yours truly has a reputation for being tough on grading students. It is true. I am tough. And for a reason. Economics is hard. Getting a grade in it is not something you have a right to. You have to show that you master the material. You have to earn it! [embedded content] div{float:left;margin-right:10px;} div.wpmrec2x div.u > div:nth-child(3n){margin-right:0px;} ]]> Advertisements

Economics textbooks transmogrifying truth — wages and unemployment A couple of weeks ago yours truly was sent a copy of the new edition of Chad Jones intermediate textbook Macroeconomics (4th ed, W W Norton, 2018). There’s much in the book I like, e. g. Jones’  combining of more traditional short-run macroeconomic analysis with an accessible coverage of the Romer model — the foundation of modern growth theory — and DSGE business cycle models. Unfortunately...

Labour’s manifesto — not continued austerity — is what the UK needs On 8 June, voters will go to the polls for perhaps the most important UK general election since 1945. The importance arises in great part from profound differences in economic policy, reflecting different views of the nature and health of the British economy. The Conservative manifesto calls for continued austerity, which will tend to slow the economy at a crucial juncture, against the...

‘Cauchy logic’ in economics What is 0.999 …, really? Is it 1? Or is it some number infinitesimally less than 1? The right answer is to unmask the question. What is 0.999 …, really? It appears to refer to a kind of sum: .9 + + 0.09 + 0.009 + 0.0009 + … But what does that mean? That pesky ellipsis is the real problem. There can be no controversy about what it means to add up two, or three, or a hundred numbers. But infinitely many? That’s a different story....

Les garçons de la plage  [embedded content] div{float:left;margin-right:10px;} div.wpmrec2x div.u > div:nth-child(3n){margin-right:0px;} ]]> Advertisements

[embedded content] Nationalekonomer hävdar ofta — vanligtvis med hänvisning till Milton Friedman och hans metodologiska individualism — att det inte gör så mycket om de antaganden som deras modeller bygger på är realistiska eller ej. Vad som betyder något är om de prediktioner/förutsägelser/prognoser som modellerna resulterar i visar sig vara riktiga eller ej. Om det verkligen är så, är den enda slutsats vi kan dra att dessa modeller och prognoser hör hemma i papperskorgen....

Deirdre McCloskey — shallow and misleading This is not new to most of you of course. You are already steeped in McCloskey’s Rhetoric. Or you ought to be. After all economists are simply telling stories about the economy. Sometimes we are taken in. Sometimes we are not. Unfortunately McCloskey herself gets a little too caught up in her stories. As in her explanation as to how she can be both a feminist and a free market economist: “The market is the great...

Nationalekonomiska föreningens årsmöte 2017  [embedded content] div{float:left;margin-right:10px;} div.wpmrec2x div.u > div:nth-child(3n){margin-right:0px;} ]]> Advertisements

 [embedded content] [h/t Eric Schüldt] div{float:left;margin-right:10px;} div.wpmrec2x div.u > div:nth-child(3n){margin-right:0px;} ]]> Advertisements