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Tag Archives: Uncategorized

Bayesianism — a patently absurd approach to science

from Lars Syll Mainstream economics nowadays usually assumes that agents that have to make choices under conditions of uncertainty behave according to Bayesian rules (preferably the ones axiomatised by Ramsey (1931), de Finetti (1937) or Savage (1954)) — that is, they maximise expected utility with respect to some subjective probability measure that is continually updated according to Bayes theorem. If not, they are supposed to be irrational, and ultimately — via some “Dutch book” or...

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Why are most textbooks still proprietary?

from Blair Fix Today a rant about textbooks. Every year governments spend billions of dollars on public education, teaching students knowledge that was itself created by publicly funded research. Yet each year, university students must pay anew for this information by purchasing high-priced textbooks. It needn’t be this way. Most university textbooks are written by tenured (or tenure-track) professors. These are people who are paid by the public to generate and disseminate knowledge....

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The Long Term Consequences of Economic Downturns

Chairman Powell, Secretary Yellen, and President Biden have recently spoken about the long term consequences for many of economic downturns. More should, more often. The Media should recognize how important this is; ask the question whenever it needs to be asked. The Congress should put this front and center in any and all discussions about economic policy. Why? Because millions of Americans never recovered from 1979-1980. Millions more never...

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Neo-Ricardian economics — rigorous and totally irrelevant

from Lars Syll I claim that Sraffian economics, however rigorous in its use of the simultaneous equations method … is irrelevant to our understanding of the real world and, judging by its failure to draw any policy implications, is largely irrelevant to the major concerns of modern economists … This is not a judgment based simply on my opinion, which is ultimately no better than yours. Relevance is not a matter for individual opinion but a social judgment of the community of professional...

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The roaring revival of political economy

from Hardy Hanappi and Real-World Economics Review For human societies, contrary to other species, the direction of their development is always co-determined by the way that their members produce a shared interpretation of their environment in order to achieve a common goal[1]. How to find a commonly shared view of our global society has become increasingly difficult in the decades since 1945. One reason certainly is the development of the global production system itself, which rapidly...

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On the use of logic and mathematics in economics

from Lars Syll Logic, n. The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding. The basic of logic is the syllogism, consisting of a major and a minor premise and a conclusion – thus: Major Premise: Sixty men can do a piece of work sixty times as quickly as one man. Minor Premise: One man can dig a post-hole in sixty seconds; Therefore- Conclusion: Sixty men can dig a post-hole in one second. This may be called syllogism...

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