New Zealand’s Hidden Megathrust Fault
24 Mar 2017 Leave a comment
in economics of natural disasters Tags: earthquakes
The Death of Logic and Reason at University
24 Mar 2017 Leave a comment
in economics
This post was authored by Austin Henshaw.
If the purpose of a college education is for students to learn, the academy is failing in its mission, according to Richard Arum’s Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses.
The book cites data from self-reported student surveys and analyzes transcripts to show that many college students have minimal classwork expectations comparative to the past. Former Governor of North Carolina, James G. Martin laments “As a former college Chemistry teacher, I have become increasingly concerned that there is too little commitment to academic rigor on our campuses.” The book tracked the academic gains of a sample of 2,300 students of traditional college age enrolled at multiple four-year colleges and universities. The students took the Collegiate Learning Assessment (which is designed to measure gains in critical thinking and analytic reasoning) at various points before and during their college educations, and the results…
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25 Years Later, Is It Still the Hayek Century?
24 Mar 2017 Leave a comment
in economics
Hayek died 25 years ago on 23 March 1992.
David Boaz of Cato Institue pays a tribute:
Hayek lived long enough to see the rise and fall of fascism, national socialism, and Soviet communism. In the years since Hayek’s death economic freedom around the world has been increasing, and liberal values such as human rights, the rule of law, equal freedom under law, and free access to information have spread to new areas. But today liberalism is under challenge from such disparate yet symbiotic ideologies as resurgent leftism, right-wing authoritarian populism, and radical political Islamism. I am optimistic because I think that once people get a taste of freedom and prosperity, they want to keep it. The challenge for Hayekian liberals is to help people understand that freedom and prosperity depend on liberal values, the values explored and defended in his many books and articles.
There is more…
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Time for an equal pay day for young urban males?
24 Mar 2017 Leave a comment
in discrimination, economics of education, gender, human capital, labour economics, labour supply, occupational choice, urban economics Tags: College premium, gender way, graduate premium, reversing gender gap, urban wage premium
Speaking of the right not to be offended
24 Mar 2017 Leave a comment
in liberalism Tags: Blasphemy, free speech, Freedom of religion, political correctness
98% top US economists disagree @NZSuperFund strategy @VernonSmall @JordNZ
24 Mar 2017 Leave a comment
in financial economics, fiscal policy, politics - New Zealand, public economics Tags: active investing, efficient markets hypothesis, passive investing, sovereign wealth funds
There is always one. Liran Einav had to be the only economist out of 100 or so top American and European economists who disagreed with the proposition that:
In general, absent any inside information, an equity investor can expect to do better by choosing a well-diversified, low-cost index fund than by picking a few stocks.
The New Zealand Superannuation Fund’s policy of active investing has one supporter out of 100 surveyed by the Initiative for Global Markets. I suppose it is better than none.
Letter to @DomPost on @NZSuperfund performance @Taxpayersunion utopiayouarestandinginit.com/2017/03/18/let… https://t.co/wxo6F1zZn5—
Jim Rose (@JimRose69872629) March 18, 2017
The chief executive of the fund quibbles by claiming there is a 3rd way between active and passive investing but there is not as William Sharp explained in his timeless 1991 article, The Arithmetic of Active Management:
- A passive investor always holds every security from the market, with each represented in the same manner as in the market. Thus if security X represents 3 per cent of the value of the securities in the market, a passive investor’s portfolio will have 3 per cent of its value invested in X. Equivalently, a passive manager will hold the same percentage of the total outstanding amount of each security in the market2.
- An active investor is one who is not passive. His or her portfolio will differ from that of the passive managers at some or all times. Because active managers usually act on perceptions of mispricing, and because such misperceptions change relatively frequently, such managers tend to trade fairly frequently — hence the term “active.”
An active fund is a fund that is not a passive fund. If you do not own a balanced portfolio of every security in the market, you are an active investor.
The majority of the New Zealand Superannuation fund is passively invested but some of it is not. It is invested in dogs like KiwiBank, in Z service stations and even in some bad Portuguese loans.
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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