How to lie about statistics on inequality and global poverty @oxfamnz @Oxfam
29 Sep 2015 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, development economics, econometerics, economic history, growth disasters, growth miracles, human capital, labour economics, Marxist economics, poverty and inequality, rentseeking Tags: activists, do gooders, expressive voting, Leftover Left, Oxfam, rational ignorance, rational irrationality, Twitter left
A handy guide to irrational nonsense
28 Sep 2015 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, liberalism Tags: cognitive psychology, logical fallacies, philosophy of science, quackery, rational rationality
The impact of economic theory on political belief
28 Sep 2015 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, comparative institutional analysis, economics of education, Marxist economics Tags: conjecture and refutation, evidence-based policy, methodology of economics, overweening conceit of view, philosophy of the social sciences
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@nzlabour @FairnessNZ My first Parliamentary submission – opposing regulation of zero hours contracts
25 Sep 2015 1 Comment
in applied price theory, labour economics, labour supply, occupational choice, personnel economics, politics - New Zealand Tags: employment law, employment protection law, employment regulation, fixed costs of employment, Leftover Left, The fatal conceit, unintended consequences, zero hours contracts
This Labour Party link made it very easy for me to submit to the Select Committee of Parliament to oppose the Bill on regulating zero hours contracts. I oppose the Bill for the exact opposite reasons that the Labour Party opposes the Bill.
I encourage others to make a submission to Parliament as well opposing this draft amendment that will lower the wages of workers. My submission is as follows:
I do not support the proposed changes to the legislation governing zero hour contracts in the Employment Standards Legislation Bill. There should be no regulation of zero hours contracts.
Zero hours contracts is creative destruction at work in the labour market, sweeping away obsolete working time arrangements, mostly in the retail services sector. Plenty of new ways of working have emerged in recent years that include the proliferation of part-time work, temporary workers, leased workers, working from home, teleworking and sub-contracting. Employment laws were built on the now decaying assumption that workers had career-long, stable relationships with single employers.
Advance notice of work schedules is always known only to a minority of temporary and permanent employees in New Zealand, and there’s not much difference between that advance notice between temporary and permanent employees.
Critics overplay their hand if they suggest that somehow workers are very much disadvantaged and employers are holding all the cards. Job turnover and recruitment problems are a serious cost to a business. Workers will not sign zero hours contracts if they are not to their advantage.
Unless labour markets are highly uncompetitive with employers having massive power over employees, employers should have to pay a wage premium if zero-hour contracts are a hassle for workers.
The fixed costs of employment are such that you shouldn’t expect zero-hour contracts: you’ll typically do better with one 40-hour worker over two 20-hour workers because of these costs. Zero hour contracts would be most likely in jobs with low recruitment costs and where specialised training needs are low. Workers with low fixed costs of working will move into the zero-hour sector while those with higher fixed costs would prefer lower hourly rates but more guaranteed hours. Again, read lower here as meaning relative to what they could elsewhere earn.
Unless we have a good idea about why firms are moving to zero hours contracts, which we don’t, and why employees sign these contracts rather than work for other employers who offer more regular hours, meddling in these novel working time arrangements is risky.
Employers must pay a wage premium to induce in workers to sign zero hours contracts. This Bill seeks to deny workers the right to seek higher wages.
Feel free to use the above text as the basis for your own submission to Parliament.
Will the standard policy response to a labour market crisis reduce inequality?
24 Sep 2015 2 Comments
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, economic history, economics of bureaucracy, economics of education, human capital, labour economics, occupational choice, poverty and inequality, Public Choice Tags: assortative mating, asymmetric marriage premium, College premium, economics of higher education, economics of schooling, economics of universities, graduate premium, marriage and divorce, power couples, university premium
Whenever there is a crisis in the labour market, the standard policy response is send them on a course. That makes you look like you care and by the time they graduate the problem will probably fixed itself. Most problems do. I found this bureaucratic response to labour market crises to repeat itself over and over again while working in the bureaucracy.
Inequality – What can be done?
Stefan Thewissen reviews Tony Atkinson’s book
bit.ly/1h0KDDF http://t.co/KiiGgFQJau—
Max Roser (@MaxCRoser) September 27, 2015
The standard policy response to a normal problem in the labour market is send them on a course. Clever geeks as yourself sitting at your desk as a policy analysis or minister did well at university. You assume others will as well including those who have neither the ability or aptitude to succeed in education. Lowering university tuition fees and easing the terms of student loans simply means that those who do well at university will not have to pay back as much to the government. People who succeed at university already have above average IQs so they already had a good head start in life.
Will more education decrease inequality? A simulation provided an answer. nyti.ms/1xw5m9W http://t.co/paQp19BEWc—
The Upshot (@UpshotNYT) March 31, 2015
The standard solution to growing inequality is to send people on a course. Trouble is that just make smart people wealthier without helping the not so smart and increases the chance of smart men and women marrying off together. This increases the inequality between power couples and the rest.
Drug Price Controls End Up Costing Patients Their Lives
24 Sep 2015 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, comparative institutional analysis, economics of regulation, entrepreneurship, health economics, industrial organisation, law and economics, politics - USA, property rights, survivor principle Tags: creative destruction, endogenous growth theory, innovation, intellectual property rights, patents and copyrights, pharmaceutical innovation, price controls
Our research shows that when prices fall, innovation falls even more. Patients would see their lives cut short by delayed or absent drugs.
Source: Drug Price Controls End Up Costing Patients Their Health – NYTimes.com
…cutting prices by 40 to 50 percent in the United States will lead to between 30 and 60 percent fewer R and D projects being undertaken in the early stage of developing a new drug. Relatively modest price changes, such as 5 or 10 percent, are estimated to have relatively little impact on the incentives for product development – perhaps a negative 5 percent.
Source: The Effect of Price Controls on Pharmaceutical Research
Is this evidence of the great stagnation?
24 Sep 2015 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economic history, entrepreneurship, industrial organisation, survivor principle, technological progress Tags: creative destruction, great stagnation, The Great Enrichment
Are today's young Americans the luckiest generation in history? ow.ly/R425e @Mark_J_Perry @AEIdeas http://t.co/8lHZNkq1Ak—
AEI on Campus (@AEIonCampus) August 18, 2015
Pope Francis versus The Great Fact
23 Sep 2015 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, development economics, economic history, growth disasters, growth miracles, Marxist economics Tags: capitalism and freedom, Catholic Church, extreme poverty, global poverty, Pope Francis, The Great Fact
Most powerful defense of #capitalism by @DeirdreMcClosk ow.ly/Swgsg
@JimPethokoukis @AEIecon @PrudentiaMag http://t.co/sznhzAl2TS—
AEI on Campus (@AEIonCampus) September 22, 2015
How can we eradicate #poverty by 2030? @Winnie_Byanyima wef.ch/1QvSVPW #development http://t.co/reBsT24BU3—
World Economic Forum (@wef) September 24, 2015
The supply-side economics of JFK
23 Sep 2015 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, politics - USA, Public Choice Tags: JFK, supply-side economics, taxation and growth, taxation and investment, taxation and the labour supply
Many conservationists are against effective rhino conservation
23 Sep 2015 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, development economics, entrepreneurship, environmental economics, growth disasters, growth miracles, law and economics, property rights Tags: Africa, agricultural economics, do gooders, economics of conservation, economics of endangered species, endangered species, expressive voting, Leftover Left, Twitter left, unintended consequences
https://twitter.com/ConversationUK/status/646227223716872197/photo/1
https://twitter.com/dlAfrican/status/646215227076292608
Capturing the economic value of wildlife for the benefit of wildlife. New in PERC Reports: bit.ly/1JHerwj http://t.co/yijFIChPDo—
PERC (@PERCtweets) September 13, 2015
How private ownership and trophy hunting saved the southern white rhino: bit.ly/1HhZy55 #WorldRhinoDay http://t.co/s4PudPwrrI—
PERC (@PERCtweets) September 22, 2015
Mises on entrepreneurs and consumer sovereignty
21 Sep 2015 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, Austrian economics, economic history, industrial organisation, Ludwig von Mises, survivor principle Tags: competition and monopoly, consumer sovereignty, creative destruction, entrepreneurial alertness, market selection, The meaning of competition
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