Tag Archives: Economics

This paper investigates the impact of different varieties of capitalism (VoC) on societal happiness. It begins with a critique of Neoclassical welfare economics which emphasizes Pareto optimality, and it argues for focusing on reported societal happiness. The paper identifies five VoC. Using a sample of twenty-six high-income countries drawn from the 2020 World Happiness Report, […]

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...

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...

Is democracy mathematically impossible? .[embedded content] Arrow’s impossibility theorem is correct given its ‘rationality assumptions.’ To ‘escape’ this, we must therefore abandon some of these assumptions. The non-dictatorship, independence, and Pareto conditions remain quite unassailable. Arrow himself believed that the independence of irrelevant alternatives condition was the most likely to be modified. One way to do this, without compromising the...

Inequality continues to grow all over the world — so don’t even for a second think that this is only a US problem! In case you think that it’s different in yours truly’s own country — Sweden — you should take a look at some recent data from Statistics Sweden The Gini coefficient is a measure of inequality (where a higher number signifies greater inequality) and for Sweden, we have this for the income distribution: . What we see happen in the US and Sweden is deeply...

Die Schuldenbremse — muss das wirklich sein? Schulden abzubauen gilt als generationengerecht. Schließlich, so das Argument, reduziere das die Zinslast zukünftiger Generationen. Das klingt nachvollziehbar, in der Realität ist es aber etwas komplizierter. Weniger Schulden sind nicht gleichbedeutend mit einer geringeren Zinslast. Denn zum einen genießt der Bund zeitweise ein ganz besonderes Privileg: Er zahlt nicht für seine Schulden, sondern wird dafür...

Dum och dummare i svensk nationalekonomi I Tidningen Näringslivet kunde vi för några år sedan läsa en intervju med ekonomiprofessor Daniel Waldenström, där denne gång på gång bagatelliserade den ökade inkomst- och förmögenhetsklyftan i Sverige under de senaste 40 åren. Enligt Waldenström har efter 00-talet ”inkomstskillnaderna faktiskt inte ökat särskilt mycket alls.” De som påpekar att ojämlikheten de facto ökat kraftigt även de senaste två decennierna,...

Av med den finanspolitiska tvångströjan! Konjunkturen vill inte riktigt vända, arbetslösheten ökar, tillväxtprognoserna har redan förbytts i stagnationsprognoser. De närmsta åren kommer med stor sannolikhet att bjuda på en långvarig konjunktursvacka. I detta minst sagt svåra läge har det blivit allt tydligare att penning- och räntepolitiken inte längre är verkningsfull. Men vad regeringen med manisk envishet vägrar inse är att ekonomin behöver en rejäl...

What is heterodox economics? Based on our interviews, heterodox economics appears to be a positive project, inevitably defined somewhat in terms of the mainstream but not exhaustively so. It is also efficacious, with policy and real-world impact. It is a complex object, not amenable to definition by a single criterion. Its dimensions are partly intellectual, in terms of what it believes. It holds a realist position. It is concerned with asymmetric power...