Emil O. W. Kirkegaard blog
In science, we are generally mostly interested in causal relationships because these are the ones that matter. Causality is generally defined in terms of counter-factuals: if things were such and such, or had been such and such, things would be such and such (instead). One can formalize this reasoning with the do-operator and related methods…
Continue ReadingThere is a list that’s floating around (meaning: copy pasted without sources), and it’s also got no exact sources, so it’s unclear how legit it is. So I did some searching to confirm, and this blogpost can then be the new reference post. I noted that some of the titles were wrong, sometimes they change…
Continue ReadingSee prior post on national IQs and who you can’t cite. Economists and intelligence researchers don’t generally talk: Test scores, on the other hand, offer direct measures of a variety of more-or-less specific abilities and, when the tests in question are well-constructed, objective, standardized tests, they are fairly precise measures that can be kept quite…
Continue ReadingSometimes when I complain about the horrible state of the art in social science, and especially in human resource management, senior colleagues tell me that it’s near impossible to convince companies to do proper large randomized trials. Perhaps, but if that’s how science needs to get done, then work on convincing them. Fortunately, there are…
Continue ReadingChristainsen, Gregory. (2020). Rushton, Jensen, and the Wealth of Nations: Biogeography and Public Policy as Determinants of Economic Growth. Mankind Quarterly. This paper offers a review of some of the empirical literature on economic growth and discusses its recent evolution in light of developments in intelligence research and genomics. The paper also undertakes the first…
Continue ReadingGunnar Myrdal, who was Swedish, expresses an early version of the views the media repeat endlessly these days. To give some examples: White prejudice and discrimination keep the Negro low in standards of living, health, education, manners and morals. This, in its turn, gives support to white prejudice. White prejudice and Negro standards thus mutually…
Continue ReadingRecently, I found a Swedish language report that discusses economic consequences of refugee immigration to Sweden. Ruist, Joakim. 2018:3 Tid för integration – en ESO-rapport om flyktingars bakgrund och arbetsmarknadsetablering. The report is published by “Expertgruppen för Studier i Offentlig ekonomi”, expert group for studies in public finances, which is a subunit under the ministry…
Continue ReadingI made a new video, sort of as an experiment (with a bad microphone, will get another one for next video). The slides are here. I talk about economics of immigration, mainly from a Nordic perspective, of course, I take a very data-heavy approach. Main goals of doing these: Scientific impact. I almost never watch…
Continue ReadingSweden, the land of feminism, of course constantly demands the government produces reports that prove the sex gap in incomes is caused by evil eyes men. So, the bureaucrats attempt to oblige and produce a stream of reports, all of which result conclusions like these: Den statistiska analysen visar att den genomsnittliga löneskillnaden nästan helt…
Continue ReadingI have written a lot about ancestry approaches, generally from a psychometric and genomic angle. However, economists can also play this game. Daniel A. F. Lopes, Geraldo A. Silva Filho, and Leonardo Monasterio. Culture, Institutions and School Achievement in Brazil This paper estimates the impact of culture on the academic performance of Brazilian students in…
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