The obvious ignorance of the paper by the Treasury economists on women in economics is modern labour economics was founded on the study of women. Men are boring. They get a job in their teens, retire at 65 and then drop dead. There is an immense amount of variation in female labour supply and educational choices which has been the foundation of hundreds of PhDs and thousands of economic articles.
You might have thought that there were real and important issues for The Treasury to be generating research and advice on. Things like, for example, the decades-long productivity underperformance and the associated widening gap between New Zealand and Australia. Or a housing and urban land market which renders what should be a basic – the ability to buy one’s own house – out of reach for so many New Zealanders. Or even just preparing for the next recession. Analytical capability is a scarce resource, and time used for one thing can’t be used for others.
But instead…..
In a post last night about various papers presented at the recent New Zealand Association of Economists conference, Eric Crampton alerted his readers last night to a contribution from Treasury’s chief economist (and Deputy Secretary) Tim Ng and one of his staff.
I did not attend Treasury’s session in which…
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Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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