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description= 15 posts published by Lars Syll during July 2023;
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lars p syll lars p syll blog lps cv downloadable publications gretl gunnar myrdal s immanent critique of utility theory 31 jul 2023 at 17 45 posted in economics 2 comments during the time period from 1925 to 1933 when he still considered himself a central theoretician and a pure economic theorist gunnar myrdal wanted to apply to economic doctrines an immanent method of criticism his main interest was to criticize the received economic theory that had preserved structures of normative speculation built upon the concepts of utility and welfare many have tried to assess myrdal s contribution to social sciences and economics brinley thomas 1936 tord palander 1953 karl gustav landgren 1960 george shackle 1967 erik lundberg 1974 paul streeten 1979 and gilles dostaler 1990 perhaps being the most well known they however mostly discuss myrdal s contributions to monetary equilibrium analysis and economic policy and miss a discussion of what was one of myrdal s main concerns up until at least 1931 a critique of utility theory although perhaps little known today myrdal wrote quite extensively on this special line of criticism during the period partly based on some previously unpublished material yours truly has described and posited this critique in an essay published in history of political economy in his early career under the strong influence of the uppsala philosopher axel hägerström and the economist gustav cassel myrdal questioned the received opinion of the economic establishment economists often thought they drew political recommendations from value free theories myrdal argued that this was not the case and that it was important to clarify the value judgments implicitly used and to separate economic policy from economic analysis many of the ideas he presented in his theoretical works during this period such as the difference between ex ante and ex post the role of uncertainty and expectations the problem of value premises and normative elements became cornerstones of his later more institutional and sociological studies positive economics was not value free and often lacked empirical basis this was especially obvious in marginal utility theory with its lack of thorough theoretical reflection already in his 1927 dissertation prisbildningsproblemet och föränderligheten myrdal attacked the theory mainly from a methodological point of view arguing that psychology had to be subordinated to a primary price formation explanation later he rather meant that economic analysis presupposes scientific psychology but that marginal utility theory both in its old hedonistic pleasure and pain form and in its new choice theoretic form was a circular construction without foundation in such psychology as john hicks noted in his review of myrdal s 1953 book the political element in the development of economic theory myrdal s critique was a derivation from cassel whose rejection of cardinal utility was extended by myrdal into a thoroughgoing rejection of subjective valuation theory altogether this according to hicks was also one of the sources of his extremism this was a source on which myrdal had quite strong beliefs and wrote extensively during the period it was a central part of his early scientific economic writings which contained many elements of his later mainly institutional works and played an important role in the development of the stockholm school of economics myrdal s penetrating critique of the neoclassical theory of value is yet today relevant to economists critically evaluating mainstream economic theory share on facebook opens in new window facebook share on x opens in new window x share on bluesky opens in new window bluesky vad ska vi göra nu när visionerna rasar 31 jul 2023 at 11 34 posted in varia comments off on vad ska vi göra nu när visionerna rasar share on facebook opens in new window facebook share on x opens in new window x share on bluesky opens in new window bluesky the tyranny of merit 31 jul 2023 at 11 28 posted in politics society comments off on the tyranny of merit share on facebook opens in new window facebook share on x opens in new window x share on bluesky opens in new window bluesky why economists can t forecast 30 jul 2023 at 10 27 posted in economics 4 comments the problem of evaluating models built for forecasting is that one cannot get around invariance there must be a stable bridge that connects the past and pres ent with the future to evaluate invariance its domain should be considered in other words one has to investigate what the list of all relevant non negligible potential influences is to ensure invariance this list should be complete this latter point was also emphasised by john maynard keynes when he was criticising tinbergen s econometric method am i right in thinking that the method multiple correlation analysis essentially depends on the economist having furnished not merely a list of significant causes which is correct so far as it goes but a complete list keynes 1939 p 560 but these considerations are not sufficient for the evaluation of the predictive per performance of a non natural science such as economics predictive power also implies that both the domain of invariance as well as the magnitudes of the potential influences should be invariant this point too was raised by keynes in his critique on tinbergen s method the environment in all relevant respects other than the fluctuations in those factors of which we take particular account should be uniform and homogeneous over a period of time we cannot be sure that such conditions will persist in the future even if we find them in the past keynes 1939 pp 566 67 this latter point was discussed extensively in keynes s treatise on probability 1921 cw vill under the heading of the theory of statistical inference it seeks to extend its description of certain characteristics of observed events to the corresponding characteristics of other events which have not been observed keynes 1921 cw viii p 358 for inductive inference based on statistical analysis it is of relevance to show whether the statistical series shows some stability the verification of whether a statistical series has some stability is required because the condition for economic statistical series to be applicable for inductive inference is that it shows sufficient homogeneity or uniformity this all shows why economists perform so badly when it concerns forecasting marcel boumans maintaining that economics is a science in the true knowledge business yours truly remains a sceptic of the pretences and aspirations of econometrics the marginal return on its ever higher technical sophistication in no way makes up for the lack of serious under labouring of its deeper philosophical and methodological foundations that already keynes complained about the rather one sided emphasis of usefulness and its concomitant instrumentalist justification cannot hide that the legions of probabilistic econometricians who give supportive evidence for their considering it fruitful to believe in the possibility of treating unique economic data as the observable results of random drawings from an imaginary sampling of an imaginary population are skating on thin ice a rigorous application of econometric methods in economics really presupposes that the phenomena of our real world economies are ruled by stable causal relations between variables the endemic lack of predictive success of the econometric project indicates that this hope of finding fixed parameters is a hope for which there really is no other ground than hope itself according to keynes we live in a world permeated by unmeasurable uncertainty not quantifiable stochastic risk which often forces us to make decisions based on anything but rational expectations keynes rather thinks that we base our expectations on the confidence or weight we put on different events and alternatives to keynes expectations are a question of weighing probabilities by degrees of belief beliefs that often have preciously little to do with the kind of stochastic probabilistic calculations made by the rational agents as modelled by modern social sciences and often we simply do not know how strange that social scientists and mainstream economists as a rule do not even touch upon these aspects of scientific methodology that seem to be so fundamental and important for anyone trying to understand how we learn and orient ourselves in an uncertain world an educated guess on why this is a fact would be that keynes s concepts are not possible to squeeze into a single calculable numerical probability in the quest for measurable quantities one puts a blind eye to qualities and looks the other way so why do companies governments and central banks continue with this more or less expensive but obviously worthless activity a part of the answer concerns ideology and apologetics forecasting is a non negligible part of the labour market for mainstream economists and so of course those in the business do not want to admit that they are occupied with worthless things not to mention how hard it would be to sell the product with that kind of frank truthfulness governments the finance sector and central banks also want to give the impression to customers and voters that they so to say have the situation under control telling people that next year x will be 5 04 makes wonders in that respect why else would anyone want to pay them or vote for them these are sure not glamorous aspects of economics as a science but as a scientist it would be unforgivably dishonest to pretend that economics doesn t also perform an ideological function in society share on facebook opens in new window facebook share on x opens in new window x share on bluesky opens in new window bluesky sraffian economics an unhappy trade off between rigour and relevance 29 jul 2023 at 14 01 posted in economics 1 comment we have continually noted the tendency of sraffians to subordinate the study of the substantive nature of economic phenomena to the requirements of logical rigor and for sraffians rigor equals get general equilibrium theory the simultaneous determination of endogenous economic variables the marriage of sraffian economics and get is not a promising avenue for studying past thinkers such as classical economists and yet it is one of the major claims of sraffian economics that it alone throws light on past ideas the fact that classical economics whatever else it is is the study of an economy in motion indeed in motion in a state of disequilibrium only tending toward equilibrium makes sraffian economics particularly inappropriate for illuminating classical economics and the shadow that it casts over classical economics is made even darker when it considers problems in modern economics sraffians spend their time finding logical flaws in the models of their enemies rather than building platforms for illuminating the workings of an economy they are formalists pure and simple making a fetish of the form of theories at the neglect of strengthening their content they simply cannot resist what nancy cartwright 1999 calls the vanity of rigour in economics i have frequently likened sraffa to debreu but debreu 1987 3 402 was always insistent that get as such proves nothing about the case for free markets versus state intervention which would require a descriptive interpretation that goes beyond the domain of get but sraffa implies that the role of demand in price determination is settled once and for all by his objectivist theory even before we have begun to interpret the model by adding to it empirical assumptions from the real world mark blaug just as post war mainstream economics has been criticized for being founded on an axiomatic deductive mathematical methodology i think blaug is fair in his criticism of sraffa the core of sraffian economics is based on the same methodology share on facebook opens in new window facebook share on x opens in new window x share on bluesky opens in new window bluesky the deficit lies mainstream economists knowingly tell us 29 jul 2023 at 11 12 posted in economics 4 comments the interview was given to mark blaug in 1995 in transcript i think there is an element of truth in the view that the superstition that the budget must be balanced at all times is necessary once it is debunked it takes away one of the bulwarks that every society must have against expenditure out of control there must be discipline in the allocation of resources or you will have anarchistic chaos and inefficiency and one of the functions of old fashioned religion was to scare people by sometimes what might be regarded as myths into behaving in a way that the long run civilized life requires samuelson s statement makes me come to think of the following passage in keynes general theory the ideas of economists and political philosophers both when they are right and when they are wrong are more powerful than is com monly understood indeed the world is ruled by little else practical men who believe themselves to be exempt from any intellectual influences are usually the slaves of some defunct economist madmen in authori ty who hear voices in the air are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back share on facebook opens in new window facebook share on x opens in new window x share on bluesky opens in new window bluesky michael sandel and democracy s discontent 28 jul 2023 at 12 08 posted in politics society comments off on michael sandel and democracy s discontent sandel is as always both incisive and sensible in his analysis as did polanyi decades ago sandel shows the dangers of letting market economies drift into becoming market societies share on facebook opens in new window facebook share on x opens in new window x share on bluesky opens in new window bluesky the tractability hoax in modern economics 27 jul 2023 at 12 34 posted in economics 3 comments while the paternity of the theoretical apparatus underlying the new neoclassical synthesis in macro is contested there is wide agreement that the methodological framework was largely architected by robert lucas bringing a representative agent meant foregoing the possibility to tackle inequality redistribution and justice concerns was it deliberate how much does this choice owe to tractability what macroeconomists were chasing in these years was a renewed explanation of the business cycle they were trying to write microfounded and dynamic models rational expectations imposed cross equation restrictions yet estimating these new models substantially raised the computing burden assuming a representative agent mitigated computational demands and allowed macroeconomists to get away with general equilibrium aggregate issues it made new classical models analytically and computationally tractable was tractability the main reason why lucas embraced the representative agent and market clearing or could he have improved tractability through alternative hypot...
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