Lars P. Syll

Den 21 januari är det fjorton år sedan Fadime Sahindal mördades; hennes pappa vägrade låta henne välja sitt liv. Den gången var det laddat att tala om hedersrelaterat våld, om miljöer där släktens rykte hängde på kvinnornas dygd. Tidigare hade kulturella olikheter rentav betraktats som förmildrande omständigheter. Sådan kulturrelativism är lyckligtvis historia. Men fortfarande lever tiotusentals unga svenskar i miljöer präglade av hederskultur och vittnesmål från förorter avslöjar att...

When will Krugman catch up with Keynes? In his column this morning, Paul Krugman, had this to say about issues that have mattered a lot to me over many years now. I admire Krugman, of course, but this is bullshit, pure and simple. Not the Harry Frankfurt kind, which requires willful ignorance of the facts, but the everyday kind, which requires mere ignorance of the historical record. “Don’t say that redistribution is inherently wrong. Even if high incomes perfectly reflected productivity,...

Wren-Lewis on macroeconomic eclecticism Oxford macroeconomist Simon Wren-Lewis has a post up today on his blog discussing whether mainstream macroeconomics is eclectic or not. His answer is — both yes and no: Does this mean academic macroeconomics is fragmented into lots of cliques, some big and some small? Not really … This is because these models (unlike those of 40+ years ago) use a common language … It means that the range of assumptions that models (DSGE models if you like) can make...

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There have been over four decades of econometric research on business cycles … The formalization has undeniably improved the scientific strength of business cycle measures … But the significance of the formalization becomes more difficult to identify when it is assessed from the applied perspective, especially when the success rate in ex-ante forecasts of recessions is used as a key criterion. The fact that the onset of the 2008 financial-crisis-triggered recession was predicted by only a...

Je suis Charlie encore aujourd’hui Ska vi kunna leva tillsammans, människor från olika länder, kulturer och religioner, så måste det finnas tydliga spelregler: Detta gäller i Sverige. För alla. Respekt för lagen, för demokrati och mänskliga rättigheter, jämlikhet och jämställdhet, allas lika värde och individens rätt att välja sitt liv. När väl det är på plats står det var och en fritt att tillbe sin gud, bära slöja och fira jul, pesach, eid al-fitr. Eller låta bli.   Det är särskilt...

Yesterday John Kay had an interesting article about models and forecasting in Financial Times: A bane of this economist’s life is the belief that economics is clairvoyance. I should, according to this view, be offering prognostications of what gross domestic product growth will be this year and when the central bank will raise interest rates … What was the right answer on January 1 1989 to the question “will the Berlin Wall be pulled down in 1989?” A shrewd commentator would have said...

Bayes theorem — what’s the big deal? The plausibility of your belief depends on the degree to which your belief–and only your belief–explains the evidence for it. The more alternative explanations there are for the evidence, the less plausible your belief is. That, to me, is the essence of Bayes’ theorem. “Alternative explanations” can encompass many things. Your evidence might be erroneous, skewed by a malfunctioning instrument, faulty analysis, confirmation bias, even fraud. Your...

Krugman on models (II) Last year Alex Rosenberg — chair of the philosophy department at Duke University and renowned economic methodologist — had an interesting article on What’s Wrong with Paul Krugman’s Philosophy of Economics in 3:AM Magazine: Krugman writes: ‘So how do you do useful economics? In general, what we really do is combine maximization-and-equilibrium as a first cut with a variety of ad hoc modifications reflecting what seem to be empirical regularities about how both...