Hela den här våren har jag väntat på att Magdalena Andersson ska gå från att göra en ”Hillary Clinton” till att göra en ”Joe Biden”. Från att fastna i identitetspolitik, vara kompetent och motståndare till SD – och förlora. Till att kombinera en svidande kritik av hotet mot demokratin med en ekonomisk investeringspolitik som Joe Biden gjort […]
economics
Sometimes, one thinks that the intellectual world should evolve as intelligent people take account of the dissonance between their ideas and the facts before them and adapt their views. I know that doesn’t happen much but it should. I have studied the philosophy of science deeply enough over my student and postgrad days and beyond…
Mainstream economists who want to defend their use of models often quote statistician George Box, saying that “all models are wrong, but some are useful.” But the important lesson taken from Box ought to be another quotation from the same paper: “since all models are wrong the scientist must be alert to what is importantly […]
Nationalekonomi som vetenskap har världen över förlorat otroligt mycket i prestige och status under senare år. Inte minst på grund av dess oförmåga att analysera och förklara ekonomiska och finansiella kriser och på grund av dess avsaknad av konstruktiva och hållbara förslag på att ta oss ur dessa kriser. Hur återskapar vi förtroendet för nationalekonomin? […]
One problem in applying skepticism and critical investigation equally is that heterodox and mainstream theories use extremely different methodologies. Generally speaking, mainstream macro uses math, while heterodox macro uses literary text with no math … Which means that if we judge each theory using its own methodology, mainstream macro will have to pass rigorous quantitative […]
Contemporary mainstream economics — still — focuses on studying what happens in abstract and unrealistic models. A deeper study of underlying causal mechanisms in the economy could make economic science more realistic. However, when faced with the monumental gap between empirical data and models, mainstream economists often resort to one of their four favourite strategies […]
Perfect competition idealizes the very small firm, its growth constrained by rising AVC [Average Variable Cost] as it expands output. But why does AVC rise? And why does it rise to such an extent that it outweighs declining AFC [Average Fixed Cost], resulting in the U-shaped cost curve? Current textbooks do not supply an explanation. […]
As a philosopher of science, it is interesting to note that many economists and other social scientists appeal to a requirement that explanations, in order to be considered scientific, must be capable of “reducing an individual case to a general law.” As a fundamental principle, a general law is often invoked in the form of […]
Chetty’s pitch to the nation is that our problems have technocratic solutions, but at times I sense that he is avoiding an argument … Poor people would be better off if their children had better prospects, but also if they had more money—if the fruits of our society were shared more broadly. “I can take […]
I was on a one year sabbatical leave at Cambridge University, King’s College by invitation of Professor Wynne Godley in the year 1988/89. Seriously speaking I was surprised, because except for Godley there were only few economists left at the Faculty, who called him-/herself Keynesian. The old guard of Keynes’ disciples had disappeared: Joan Robinson […]