Lars P. Syll

What kind of ‘rigour’ do RCTs provide? The bad news is, first, that there is no reason in general to suppose that an ATE [Average Treatment Effect] observed in one population will hold in others. That is what the slogan widespread now in education and elsewhere registers: “Context matters”.  The issue in this paper is not though about when we can expect a study result to hold elsewhere but rather when we can have EBPP-style [Evidence-Based Policy and...

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Is the p-value dead? .[embedded content] All science entails human judgement, and using statistical models doesn’t relieve us of that necessity. Working with misspecified models, the scientific value of significance testing is actually zero —  even though you’re making valid statistical inferences! Statistical models and concomitant significance tests are no substitutes for doing real science. In its standard form, a significance test is not the kind of...

It is instructive to consider cases in which most people readily accept causal claims in the absence of randomized experiments. Nowadays, few people doubt the effects of tobacco smoking on lung cancer. But in the 1950s, tobacco lobbyists embraced the idea that a genetic predisposition caused both a tendency to smoke and lung cancer … In other words, they claimed that there was an unblocked backdoor path. This idea was dispelled not by randomized, controlled experiments in...

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When no formal theory is available, as is often the case, then the analyst needs to justify statistical specifications by showing that they fit the data. That means more than just “running things.” It means careful graphical and crosstabular analysis … When I present this argument … one or more scholars say, “But shouldn’t I control for every-thing I can? If not, aren’t my regression coefficients biased due to excluded variables?” But this argument is not as persuasive...

On credibility and causality in economics ‘Ideally controlled experiments’ tell us with certainty what causes what effects — but only given the right closures. Making appropriate extrapolations from (ideal, accidental, 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.’ Causes deduced in an experimental setting still have to show that they come with a...

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Don’t study economics if you’re interested in economics! .[embedded content] Steve Keen gives a truthful view of the state of economics today. Modern economics has become increasingly irrelevant to the understanding of the real world. This irrelevance comes to a large extent from the failure of economists to match their deductive-axiomatic methods with their subject. Within mainstream economics, internal validity is everything and external validity is...

Regeringens budget — en spottloska i ansiktet på landets löntagare Regeringen presenterade idag sin budget för år 2025. I de aviserade ‘satsningarna’ går nästan hälften till sänkta skatter för hushållen. Framför allt höginkomsttagare med månadsinkomster på över 60 000 kr får de största skattelättnaderna.  Detta är minst sagt provokativt om man tänker på alla de umbäranden vanliga löntagare genomlidit de senaste åren med höga räntor, dyr mat, nedbantade...