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description=15 posts published by Lars Syll during May 2022;

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Text of the page (random words):
really do everything we need them to in the long ago times researchers were happy to use instruments without thinking too hard about validity if you go back to the 1970s or 1980s you can find people using things like parental education as an instrument for your own surely your parents education can t possibly affect your outcomes except through your own education it was the wild west out there but these days go to any seminar where an instrumental variables paper is presented and you ll hear no end of worries and arguments about whether the instrument is valid and as time goes on it seems like people have gotten more and more difficult to convince when it comes to validity this focus on validity is good but sometimes comes at the expense of thinking about other iv considerations like monotonicity we ll get there or even basic stuff like how good the data is there s good reason to be concerned not only is it hard to justify that there exists a variable strongly related to treatment that somehow isn t at all related to all the sources of hard to control for back doors that the treatment had in the first place we also have plenty of history of instruments that we thought sounded pretty good that turned out not to work so well nick huntington klein s new book on how to use observational data to make causal inferences is superbly accessible highly recommended reading for anyone interested in causal inference in economics and social science 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 need to study history 24 may 2022 at 12 01 posted in economics 2 comments share on facebook opens in new window facebook share on x opens in new window x share on bluesky opens in new window bluesky into eternity 23 may 2022 at 17 13 posted in varia comments off on into eternity vangelis 1943 2022 thanks for all the great music that brought us to eternity and beyond rip share on facebook opens in new window facebook share on x opens in new window x share on bluesky opens in new window bluesky axel leijonhufvud in memoriam 23 may 2022 at 14 27 posted in economics 3 comments i first came across axel s writing as an undergraduate student at manchester university where we were taught from his doctoral dissertation keynes and the keynesians a book that shot axel to intellectual rock stardom he argued in that book that keynes general theory had nothing to do with sticky wages and prices but was instead about inter temporal coordination failure although axel recognized the importance of mathematical methods he also recognized the limitations of formalism and he insisted that a good economist must be aware of the past to this end he was a strong supporter of the teaching of economic history and the history of thought as part of the core curriculum economic history disappeared as a core subject from many economics departments in the 1980s ucla was an exception largely due to axel s insistence that a good macro economist needs to understand the past before she can understand the present or the future axel s support of the history of thought was deemed anachronistic by many of his contemporaries who viewed economics through the lens of a linear progression of knowledge in contrast axel viewed science and particularly economics as a non experimental science as a tree in which herd behavior led often to persistent treks down roads to nowhere axel was a follower of imre lakatos and his view of the progression of economics was heavily influenced by lakatos methodology and the concept of progressive and degenerative scientific research programs in his view modern macroeconomics is a degenerative research program that took a wrong turn in the 1950s axel was right about this and it is a theme that has influenced my own research agenda time will tell if the profession will eventually agree roger farmer in physics it may possibly not be straining credulity too much to model processes as ergodic where time and history do not really matter but in social and historical sciences it is obviously ridiculous if societies and economies were ergodic worlds why do econometricians fervently discuss things such as structural breaks and regime shifts that they do is an indication of the unrealisticness of treating open systems as analyzable with ergodic concepts the future is not reducible to a known set of prospects it is not like sitting at the roulette table and calculating what the future outcomes of spinning the wheel will be reading leading mainstream economists today one comes to think of robert clower s apt remark that much economics is so far removed from anything that remotely resembles the real world that it s often difficult for economists to take their own subject seriously anyone can construct models to be seriously interesting models have to come with an aim they have to have an intended use if the intention of a model is to help us explain real economies it has to be evaluated from that perspective a model or hypothesis without specific applicability is not really deserving our interest without strong evidence all kinds of absurd claims and nonsense may pretend to be science we have to demand more of a justification than a rather watered down version of anything goes when it comes to the postulates on which mainstream economics is founded if one proposes things like rational expectations one also has to support its underlying assumptions none is given which makes it rather puzzling how rational expectations have become the standard modelling assumption made in much of modern macroeconomics perhaps the reason is that economists often mistake mathematical beauty for truth share on facebook opens in new window facebook share on x opens in new window x share on bluesky opens in new window bluesky theory ladenness 22 may 2022 at 23 38 posted in theory of science methodology 1 comment it is now widely recognised that observation is not theory neutral but theory laden and that theory does not merely order facts but makes claims about the nature of its object so in evaluating observations we are also assessing particular theoretical concepts and existential claims a common response to this shattering of innocent beliefs in the certainty and neutrality of observation has been the development of idealist especially conventionalist and rationalist philosophies which assume that if observation is theory laden it must necessarily be theory determined such that it is no longer possible to speak of criteria of truth or objectivity which are not entirely internal to theoretical discourse however this is a non sequitur for at least two reasons first theory laden observation need not be theory determined even the arch conventionalist feyerabend 1970 acknowledges that it is possible to refute a theory by an experience that is entirely interpreted within its own terms if i ask how many leaves there are on a tree my empirical observation will be controlled by concepts regarding the nature of trees leaves and the operation of counting but to give an answer i d still have to go and look in arguing that there are no extra discursive criteria of truth recent idealists such as hindess and hirst echo wittgenstein s identification of the limits of our world with the limits of language and share the confusion of questions of what exists with what can be known to exist the truism that extra discursive controls on knowledge can only be referred to in discourse does not mean that what is referred to is purely internal to discourse secondly and more simply it does not follow from the fact that all knowledge is fallible that it is all equally fallible andrew sayer share on facebook opens in new window facebook share on x opens in new window x share on bluesky opens in new window bluesky when in berlin 20 may 2022 at 10 51 posted in varia comments off on when in berlin yours truly always visits walter benjamin platz close to kurfürstendamm between leibnizstraße and wielandstraße interesting architecture and a couple of excellent restaurants and cafés share on facebook opens in new window facebook share on x opens in new window x share on bluesky opens in new window bluesky ameno 19 may 2022 at 17 00 posted in varia comments off on ameno share on facebook opens in new window facebook share on x opens in new window x share on bluesky opens in new window bluesky axel leijonhufvud 1933 2022 18 may 2022 at 07 41 posted in economics 5 comments the orthodox keynesianism of the time did have a theoretical explanation for recessions and depressions proponents saw the economy as a self regulating machine in which individual decisions typically lead to a situation of full employment and healthy growth the primary reason for periods of recession and depression was because wages did not fall quickly enough if wages could fall rapidly and extensively enough then the economy would absorb the unemployed orthodox keynesians also took keynes approach to monetary economics to be similar to the classical economists leijonhufvud got something entirely different from reading the general theory the more he looked at his footnotes originally written in puzzlement at the disparity between what he took to be the keynesian message and the orthodox keynesianism of his time the confident he felt the implications were amazing had the whole discipline catastrophically misunderstood keynes deeply revolutionary ideas was the dominant economics paradigm deeply flawed and a fatally wrong turn in macroeconomic thinking and if this was the case what was keynes actually proposing leijonhufvud s keynesian economics and the economics of keynes exploded onto the academic stage the following year no mean feat for an economics book that did not contain a single equation the book took no prisoners and aimed squarely at the prevailing metaphor about the self regulating economy and the economics of the orthodoxy he forcefully argued that the free movement of wages and prices can sometimes be destabilizing and could move the economy away from full employment arjun jayadev fortunately when you ve got tired of the kind of macroeconomic apologetics produced by new keynesian macroeconomics there are still some real keynesian macroeconomists to read one of them will always be axel leijonhufvud share on facebook opens in new window facebook share on x opens in new window x share on bluesky opens in new window bluesky bertrand russell on the folly of religious faith 17 may 2022 at 14 49 posted in politics society 3 comments faith should not be a question of believing in eternity but rather of how to live our finite lives together and be true to our belief in the pursuit of authentic freedom share on facebook opens in new window facebook share on x opens in new window x share on bluesky opens in new window bluesky ga ga gasputin 16 may 2022 at 20 34 posted in varia comments off on ga ga gasputin share on facebook opens in new window facebook share on x opens in new window x share on bluesky opens in new window bluesky disney and the don t say gay bill 16 may 2022 at 15 59 posted in varia comments off on disney and the don t say gay bill share on facebook opens in new window facebook share on x opens in new window x share on bluesky opens in new window bluesky formalizing economic theory 16 may 2022 at 08 18 posted in economics 5 comments what guarantee is there that economic concepts can be mapped unambiguously into mathematical concepts the belief in the power and necessity of formalizing economic theory mathematically has thus obliterated the distinction between cognitively perceiving and understanding concepts from different domains and mapping them into each other whether the age old problem of the equality between supply and demand should be mathematically formalized as a system of inequalities or equalities is not something that should be decided by mathematical knowledge or convenience surely it would be considered absurd bordering on the insane if a surgical procedure was implemented because a tool for its implementation was devised by a medical doctor who knew and believed in topological fixed point theorems yet weighty propositions about policy are decided on the basis of formalizations based on ignorance and belief in the veracity of one kind of one dimensional mathematics k vela velupillai share on facebook opens in new window facebook share on x opens in new window x share on bluesky opens in new window bluesky berlin 12 may 2022 at 08 09 posted in varia 1 comment touring again guest appearance in berlin regular blogging to be resumed next week share on facebook opens in new window facebook share on x opens in new window x share on bluesky opens in new window bluesky next page recent posts 50 år efter studenten personal finding the late student stuff love s secret stein s paradox a lesson on precision and unbiasedness audioholic summer research ett välförtjänt bottenrekord arbetslösheten inte statsskulden är problemet how credible is the credibility revolution in econometrics randomness and representativeness are not the same lönebildning och arbetslöshet i sverige nancy cartwright s contributions to the philosophy of science what does randomisation guarantee nothing model reification in statistics and econometrics why democracy outperforms dictatorship tidöregeringens dårhusmässiga ekonomiska visdom comments policy i like comments follow netiquette comments especially anonymous ones with pseudo argumentations abusive language or irrelevant links will not be posted and please remember being a full time professor leaves only limited time to respond to comments recent comments jan wiklund on arbetslösheten inte st lars on lönebildning och arbetslöshet lars on lönebildning och arbetslöshet fred on lönebildning och arbetslöshet lars on lönebildning och arbetslöshet lars on lönebildning och arbetslöshet fred on lönebildning och arbetslöshet fred on lönebildning och arbetslöshet lars on lönebildning och arbetslöshet lars on lönebildning och arbetslöshet fredtorssander on lönebildning och arbetslöshet lars on lönebildning och arbetslöshet lars on lönebildning och arbetslöshet fred on lönebildning och arbetslöshet lars on lönebildning och arbetslöshet reading list categories economics 4 167 education school 301 politics society 1 389 statistics econometrics 998 theory of science methodology 542 varia 1 707 archives jun 2026 24 may 2026 32 apr 2026 30 mar 2026 48 feb 2026 21 jan 2026 34 dec 2025 47 nov 2025 38 oct 2025 31 sep 2025 31 aug 2025 39 jul 2025 39 jun 2025 36 may 2025 41 apr 2025 37 mar 2025 34 feb 2025 20 jan 2025 23 dec 2024 32 nov 2024 42 oct 2024 36 sep 2024 38 aug 2024 22 jul 2024 36 jun 2024 26 may 2024 31 apr 2024 27 mar 2024 33 feb 2024 30 jan 2024 26 dec 2023 30 nov 2023 25 oct 2023 29 sep 2023 36 aug 2023 34 jul 2023 49 jun 2023 44 may 2023 48 apr 2023 39 mar 2023 35 feb 2023 30 jan 2023 29 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