Lars P. Syll

Reality virus strikes economics! The WHO today warned of a virulent new virus affecting vulnerable groups in the Mid-West and Eastern USA. The outbreak, which began in the Mid-West’s extensive Great Lakes ‘Freshwater’ river system, has recently jumped the ‘Saltwater’ barrier, meaning that the entire population of its target species – ‘Mainstream’ economists – is now at risk. Speaking on behalf of the WHO, Dr Cahuc explained that the virus works by turning...

New Keynesianism — neither new nor Keynesian Maintaining that economics is a science in the ‘true knowledge’ business, I remain a skeptic of the pretences and aspirations of ‘New Keynesian’ macroeconomics. So far, I cannot really see that it has yielded very much in terms of realist and relevant economic knowledge. And there’s nothing new or Keynesian about it. ‘New Keynesianism’ doesn’t have its roots in Keynes. It has its intellectual roots in Paul...

A true Post Keynesian But these more recent writers like their predecessors were still dealing with a system in which the amount of the factors employed was given and the other relevant facts were known more or less for certain. This does not mean that they were dealing with a system in which change was ruled out, or even one in which the disappointment of expectation was ruled out. But at any given time facts and expectations were assumed to be given in a...

Unless you have a PhD in economics, you probably think it uncontroversial to argue that we should be concerned about the unemployment rate. Those of you who have lost a job, or who have struggled to find a job on leaving school, college, or a university, are well aware that unemployment is a painful and dehumanizing experience. You may be surprised to learn that, for the past thirty-five years, the models used by academic economists and central bankers to understand how the...

Are some people just unlucky when trying to think ?  [embedded content]

This was my finest hour In September 2003, Swedish citizens were asked if they wanted to join the eurozone. Of the more than 80 % of registered voters participating in the referendum close to 57 % said NO. Yours truly participated actively in the fight against the euro — and it’s still something I’m immensely proud of. New figures from Eurostat shows that the unemployment rate in many of the eurozone countries are still in double digits. This is of course...

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The true nature of saving An act of individual saving means — so to speak — a decision not to have dinner to-day. But it does not necessitate a decision to have dinner or to buy a pair of boots a week hence or a year hence or to consume any specified thing at any specified date. Thus it depresses the business of preparing to-day’s dinner without stimulating the business of making ready for some future act of consumption. It is not a substitution of future...

Rational expectations — knowing what you see can’t be there …  [embedded content]

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 &...