Everything’s Amazing and Nobody’s Happy
18 Aug 2015 Leave a comment
in applied welfare economics, development economics, economic history, economics of information, economics of media and culture, growth disasters, growth miracles, liberalism Tags: antimarket bias, Bryan Caplan, capitalism and freedom, life expectancies, living standards, pessimism bias, The Great Enrichment, The Great Escape, The Great Fact
The Great Escape is on-going
18 Aug 2015 Leave a comment
in applied welfare economics, development economics, economic history, environmental economics, growth disasters, growth miracles, health economics Tags: child mortality, global poverty, infant mortality, life expectancies, stream poverty, The Great Escape, The Great Fact
https://twitter.com/humanprogress/status/631179133989617665/photo/1
The total number of undernourished persons is falling despite population growth. buff.ly/1MgKWqd #food #health http://t.co/YfAltqvxVy—
HumanProgress.org (@humanprogress) August 11, 2015
Extreme poverty is declining, but more quickly in some places than others. See the data: buff.ly/1DDz0O5 http://t.co/W1a0WpCxHI—
HumanProgress.org (@humanprogress) August 11, 2015
Julian Simon on Resources, Growth and Human Progress
17 Aug 2015 Leave a comment
in applied welfare economics, development economics, economic history, energy economics, entrepreneurship, environmentalism, health economics, liberalism, resource economics Tags: capitalism and freedom, commodity prices, creative destruction, entrepreneurial alertness, Julian Simon, life expectancies, peak oil, The Great Enrichment, The Great Escape, The Great Fact
Median ages
16 Aug 2015 Leave a comment
in development economics, population economics Tags: demographic crisis
India and Pakistan became independent today
16 Aug 2015 Leave a comment
in constitutional political economy, development economics, economic history, growth disasters, Public Choice Tags: age of empires, British empire, India, Pakistan
This day in 1947 | India and Pakistan independent after some 200 years of British rule: timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1… http://t.co/VfbpKayExM—
NYT Archives (@NYTArchives) August 15, 2015
Why we shouldn’t rely too much on GDP and Human development index to tell us how we are doing
15 Aug 2015 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, development economics, economic history, economics of media and culture Tags: measurement error, The Great Enrichment, The Great Escape, The Great Fact
Up to now, I personally think we are yet to come up with a more accurate and adequate way of measuring our welfare, our quality or standard of living, that is, how happy we feel in our lives or how enjoyable and satisfying our lives are. If this is what we are measuring GDP (output) is in so many ways an inadequate measure of welfare because it is concentrating on output, it focuses more on commodities therefore GDP does not capture the happiness and joy got from family and social networks. So some economists have tried to come up with new ways to better measure GDP as a measure of our welfare, and they have broken down welfare into three things that they believe constitute welfare. Firstly, welfare has something to do with consumption of goods and services giving us utility, pleasure, or happiness. Secondly, it also has something to…
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Puerto Rico’s predicaments: Is its minimum wage the culprit?
15 Aug 2015 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, development economics, economic history, industrial organisation, politics - USA, public economics, rentseeking, survivor principle Tags: Puerto Rico
(Co-authored with Ben Zipperer. Posted at Washington Center for Equitable Growth)
Puerto Rico today faces a serious debt crisis, recently defaulting on a bond payment. The proximate cause is a slowdown in economic growth since the mid-2000s, which has reduced tax revenues, and a declining labor market, where employment growth has been mostly in the red since 2007.
There are many explanations for the economic downturn and the resulting fiscal crisis, but some commentators have incorrectly blamed the island’s high minimum wage. To be sure, the federal minimum wage—which has applied to Puerto Rico since 1983—is much more binding there than it is on the mainland. Because hourly wages are substantially lower in Puerto Rico compared to the U.S. mainland, the federal minimum wage policy affects more of the workforce there. In 2014, for example, the federal minimum wage stood at 77 percent of the median hourly wage in Puerto Rico…
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Creative destruction in car manufacturing
14 Aug 2015 Leave a comment
in development economics, economic history, entrepreneurship, growth miracles, industrial organisation, international economics, survivor principle Tags: automotive industry, car industry, comparative advantage, creative destruction, entrepreneurial alertness, manufacturing industry, market selection, The meaning of competition
Changing shares of car production since 1950
(source bit.ly/1hn1l0Y) http://t.co/VPhianlBBX—
Max Roser (@MaxCRoser) August 07, 2015
Zimbabwe Quietly Re-Opens Lion Hunts After Outcry Over The Killing of “Cecil the Lion”
12 Aug 2015 Leave a comment
The anti-hunting choir has a lot to answer for. #auspol http://t.co/2FGgC11VZp—
David Leyonhjelm (@DavidLeyonhjelm) August 17, 2015
Zimbabwe has its ban on lion, leopard and elephant hunting that it imposed after the illegal killing of the beloved “Cecil the Lion” by Minnesota Dentist Walter Palmer. Hunting companies were told that they could start to line up wealthy trophy hunters again for bag the big game. In the meantime, conservationists have come forward to defend trophy hunting as a needed source of revenue for these parks.
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The Singapore Spring
12 Aug 2015 Leave a comment
in development economics, growth miracles Tags: Singapore
Does fair trade help the poor?
11 Aug 2015 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, comparative institutional analysis, development economics, growth disasters, growth miracles, health and safety, human capital, industrial organisation, international economics, labour economics, survivor principle Tags: agricultural economics, expressive voting, fair trade, rational irrationality
Singapore at 50
10 Aug 2015 Leave a comment
in constitutional political economy, development economics, economic history, economics of bureaucracy, growth miracles, Public Choice Tags: Singapore
The raw numbers on The Great Fact
10 Aug 2015 Leave a comment
in development economics, economic history, growth disasters, growth miracles Tags: extreme poverty, global poverty, The Great Fact
1 billion ppl lived in extreme poverty 2 centuries ago – 1 billion ppl live in extreme poverty today. #dataviz http://t.co/xBMzrJB1N1—
Randy Olson (@randal_olson) August 01, 2015
Population projections for the rest of this century
10 Aug 2015 Leave a comment
in development economics, economic history, population economics Tags: ageing society, demographic crisis, economics of fertility
Daily chart: India will surpass China as the world's most populous country in 2022 econ.st/1MKsSFu http://t.co/EBeGKsMCtp—
The Economist (@ECONdailycharts) August 05, 2015
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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