Lars P. Syll

Post Keynesian approaches to uncertainty Two Post-Keynesian approaches to the nature and source of uncertainty and irreducible uncertainty have been considered, each with significantly different foundations and conclusions. The Human Abilities/Characteristics approach, related to epistemological uncertainty, has its primary foundations in human ignorance and inability; in Keynes’s case, the foundations lie in his logical interpretation of probability and his economic theorising from 1936...

‘Vår ekonomi’ — nationalekonomisk lärobok med uppenbara brister Varje vår håller your truly sedan fler år tillbaka en introduktionskurs i nationalekonomi för blivande gymnasielärare. Förutom några av mina egna böcker, står även Klas Eklunds Vår ekonomi på litteraturlistan. Eklunds introduktion till nationalekonomi kom år 2013 ut i sin trettonde uplaga. Imponerande och i sig ett bevis på bokens många förtjänster, inte minst de pedagogiska. Men tyvärr har boken också — fortfarande — några...

Oxford macroeconomist Simon Wren-Lewis thinks that ‘the micrcofoundations revolution’ has been great, since it means that mainstream macroeconomists speak the same language. I can go to a seminar that involves an RBC model with flexible prices and no involuntary unemployment and still contribute and possibly learn something. Wren-Lewis seems to be überjoyed by the fact that using the same language as real business cycles macroeconomists, he can ‘possibly learn something’ from them. Hmm...

Utility theory — an empty tautology In 1938 Paul Samuelson offered a replacement for the then accepted theory of utility. The cardinal utility theory had been discarded a couple of years earlier, but according to Samuelson, the ordinalist revision of utility theory was not drastic enough. One ought to analyze the consumer’s behaviour without having recourse to the concept of utility at all, since this did not correspond to directly observable phenomena. The new theory’s main feature was a...

Utility maximization — explaining everything and nothing Despite the rise of behavioral economics, many economists still believe that utility maximization is a good explanation of human behavior. Although evidence from experimental economics and elsewhere has rolled back the assumption that human agents are entirely self-interested, and shown that altruism and cooperation are important, a prominent response has been to modify individual preference functions so that they are...

Solow kicking Lucas & Sargent in the pants I think that Professors Lucas and Sargent really seem to be serious in what they say, and in turn they have a proposal for constructive research that I find hard to talk about sympathetically. They call it equilibrium business cycle theory, and they say very firmly that it is based on two terribly important postulates — optimizing behavior and perpetual market clearing. When you read closely, they seem to regard the postulate of optimizing...

Mankiw on useless macroeconomics The real world of macroeconomic policymaking can be disheartening for those of us who have spent most of our careers in academia. The sad truth is that the macroeconomic research of the past three decades has had only minor impact on the practical analysis of monetary or fiscal policy … The fact that modern macroeconomic research is not widely used in practical policymaking is prima facie evidence that it is of little use for this purpose. Greg Mankiw...

Cose della vita (personal)  [embedded content] Yours truly lived in Firenze back in 1987, trying to learn some Italian. Although I unfortunately haven’t had much time to keep up my use of that ‘bella lingua’ — reading Sraffa and Garegnani in original doesn’t count — songs like this brings back sweet memories from a spectaculary beautiful town full of history and adventures …

My blood’s so mad feels like coagulating  [embedded content]

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