Cigarette smokers are going extinct in America: https://t.co/KygWnzaIid #datastories #dataviz pic.twitter.com/ga85H3SZNn
— Linda Regber (@Satoshi_calling) November 5, 2015
The death of heavy smoking
05 Nov 2015 Leave a comment
in economic history, economics of regulation, health economics Tags: economics of smoking
He who is first is now last: real GDP per capita of the East Asian Tigers since 1950
05 Nov 2015 1 Comment
in development economics, economic history, growth miracles Tags: East Asian Tigers, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan
Japan has gone first to be last having been just overtaken in the last year or two by South Korea on a per capita real GDP basis, PPP. The Lost Decade certainly has taken its toll on Japanese relative prosperity. Singapore overtook Japan in the 1970s – a testament to the Singapore miracle. Hong Kong too overtook Japan on a purchasing power basis in the mid-1990s followed not long after by Taiwan. Singapore is seriously rich.
Source: The Conference Board. 2015. The Conference Board Total Economy Database™, May 2015, http://www.conference-board.org/data/economydatabase/
Tasmania was a pioneer in aboriginal land rights
05 Nov 2015 2 Comments
in economic history, law and economics, property rights
https://twitter.com/SadHappyAmazing/status/662133451286380545
The history of Australian aboriginals is sad enough without making up complete lies about their mistreatment. Their actual mistreatment was bad enough without making stuff up.
I sat on the Student Representative Council with a Tasmanian aboriginal. Stephen was one of the Maynards. Another prominent aboriginal family in Tasmania was the Mansells. This is despite the myth that the last Tasmanian aboriginal died in 1876. Michael Mansell was an excellent lawyer and a pragmatic advocate for his clients
In 1912, the Tasmanian Parliament passed a law recognising the land rights of Tasmanian aboriginals on Cape Barron Island. They were to be offered leases on land set aside for them. At the time they are itinerant mutton bird hunters.
That Act of Parliament created a reserve for them, listed them by name to ensure no doubt that they could apply for leases and prohibited the sale of alcohol to them to reduce alcoholism:
The Cape Barren Island Reserve Act 1912 provided that unless the residents of the Island constructed dwellings and fenced and cultivated land they would lose their right to occupy that land. It also stated that `in order to encourage the settlement of the half-castes in other parts of Tasmania outside the Reserve’ the Minister for Lands could authorise an applicant for a licence to occupy Crown land elsewhere in Tasmania… The subsequent Cape Barren Island Reserve Act 1945 was similar to the 1912 Act but it imposed more rigorous conditions on the lessees in return for a free land grant.
The 1912 Act also made an offer of 50 acres of land on the mainland of Tasmania to Cape Barren Island aboriginals. In common with the 1912 Act, The 1945 Act listed by name the Tasmanian aboriginals who were to benefit from the 99 year leases exactly where those leases were to remove any doubt or need for litigation:
The Tasmanian approach to aboriginal land rights stressed private property and the ability of each aboriginal to establish his own economic independence and make a living. Helen Hughes discussed the mainland solution which was communal rights, quoting a Palm Island resident:
The difference between a black man and a white man is this, when a white man dies his family gets his house. When a black man dies the government gets it.
The Tasmanian 1912 legislation provided for leases to be inherited by family members both through a will with specific provisions to deal with those who didn’t write a will to ensure the family still benefited:
@BernieSanders @HillaryClinton an average American works 11% less than in 1950, but earns 246% more
05 Nov 2015 Leave a comment
in economic history, politics - USA Tags: 2016 presidential elections, antimarket bias, good old days, Leftover Left, living standards, pessimism bias, rational ignorance, rational rationality, The Great Enrichment, Twitter left
Making one miracle: Philippine and South Korean real GDP per capita since 1950
05 Nov 2015 Leave a comment
in development economics, economic history, growth miracles Tags: South Korea, The Philippines
About 20 years ago, Robert Lucas reminded that in 1960 the Philippines and South Korea were at the same level of economic development. What followed for one was an economic miracle while the other the other grew at the same average pace as other developing countries is the central puzzle for the economics of economic growth.
Source: The Conference Board. 2015. The Conference Board Total Economy Database™, May 2015, http://www.conference-board.org/data/economydatabase/
Source: Robert E. Lucas Jr. “Making a Miracle” Econometrica (1993).
Milton Friedman and Paul Krugman as inflation forecasters
03 Nov 2015 Leave a comment
in economic history, macroeconomics, monetarism, monetary economics Tags: forecasting errors, Paul Krugman, public intellectuals
The U.S. is consuming more #green energy such as nuclear power
03 Nov 2015 Leave a comment
in economic history, energy economics Tags: gas, nuclear power, Oil prices, renewable energy, solar power, wind power
Child poverty by British Prime Minister since 1961
03 Nov 2015 Leave a comment
in economic growth, economic history, poverty and inequality
When I pointed out yesterday that the only periods of sustained real household income growth in recent British history was under those neoliberal lapdogs Thatcher and Blair, the Twitter Left on Reddit decided rather prematurely I might say that:
The prime minister rarely influences broad economic realities — like commodity prices or interest rates, or double digit economic growth in china. Elections frequently change the party in power AFTER the economy turns downwards. As though that party had anything to do with the down turn.
I’m sure that the morally centred Twitter Left will be equally forgiving of the sustained rise in child poverty due to many more workless households shown in the chart below under Thatchernomics. The only sustained fall in child poverty rates in recent British history was under Tony Blair. The British Left and current British Labour Party leadership dismiss him as a continuation of Thatchernomics.
Source: Incomes in the UK – Institute For Fiscal Studies – IFS.
Top incomes and the decline of unions in Canada, France and Italy
03 Nov 2015 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, economic history, entrepreneurship, industrial organisation, labour economics, labour supply, Milton Friedman, poverty and inequality, Public Choice, rentseeking, unions Tags: Canada, entrepreneurial alertness, France, Italy, top 1%, union power, union wage premium
The French ruling class is as lazy as their transnational co-conspirators down under. French union membership is in serious decline albeit from a low base. An opportunity lost for the French ruling class. It has not lifted a finger to extract additional labour surplus from the downtrodden French proletariat now stripped of their only line of collective defence against capitalist exploitation.
Source: OECD Stat and Top Incomes Database.
The top 10% and top 1% in France are no better off than two generations ago despite the decline of French unions. The French Left must be most disappointed. No kicking in the rotten door of the permanent revolution anytime soon after the immiserised French proletariat rises up because it has nothing to lose but its chains. The 21st century version of the Marxist call to the barricades would be a proletariat stirred to revolution with nothing to lose but their suburban home, motorcar, IPad and air points
Source: OECD Stat and Top Incomes Database.
The Italian ruling class has had little success in bringing Italian unions down. The top 10% in Italy is earning no more now than back when the Red Brigades were gunning for them.
Source: OECD Stat and Top Incomes Database.
The top 1% in Italy is doing a little bit better than when the Red Brigade was gunning for them, but not much more. Unions don’t figure in explaining that small rise in Italian top 1% incomes over the last 40 years. Italian unions are pretty much a strong as they were 40 years ago in membership. Italian employment protection laws are pretty much as strong as they used to be too.
Source: OECD Stat and Top Incomes Database.
The Canadian ruling classes even more incompetent than their transnational co-conspirators over in Italy. There appears to have been next to no decline in union membership in Canada. The Canadian top 10% is not earning any more than back in the 60s.
Source: OECD Stat and Top Incomes Database.
The Canadian top 1% is doing a little bit better than 25 years ago also but not off the back of unions which are almost as strong as in the past. The Canadian Left will have to look for a different hypothesis than the ravages of the top 1%.
Source: OECD Stat and Top Incomes Database.
All in all, the Economic Policy Institute simply got lucky with a spurious correlation between top incomes and union membership in the USA.
Did the British disease pass retirees by? British retiree and non-retiree median real household income by Prime Minister since 1977
03 Nov 2015 Leave a comment
in applied welfare economics, economic growth, economic history, macroeconomics, poverty and inequality Tags: British economy, British politics, Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair
The British disease and the horrors of Thatchernomics past British retirees by as did pretty much the Global Financial Crisis. Slow and steady as she goes under every Prime Minister since 1977 has been year in year out result for the real disposable median incomes of British retired households. Despite it all, British retiree household incomes increased by 170% since the winter of discontent. The fastest growth in retiree incomes was under Tony Blair.
Source: Release Edition Reference Tables – ONS.
Notes:
1 Households are ranked by their equivalised disposable incomes, using the modified-OECD scale.
2 1994/95 represents the financial year ending 1995, and similarly through to 2014/15, which represents the financial year ending 2015.
3 Income figures have been deflated to 2014/15 prices using an implied deflator for the household sector.
It has been a much rockier ride for British households yet to retire. Once again, the only time a sustained real income increases for non-retired households was under Thatcher and Blair. Despite it all, household real incomes have doubled since the winter of discontent. The majority of that doubling was under the dead hand of Tony Blair. British Labour now spends a considerable amount of time repudiating that time of unusually rapid household income growth across all of British society.
Source: Release Edition Reference Tables – ONS.
Notes:
1 Households are ranked by their equivalised disposable incomes, using the modified-OECD scale.
2 1994/95 represents the financial year ending 1995, and similarly through to 2014/15, which represents the financial year ending 2015.
3 Income figures have been deflated to 2014/15 prices using an implied deflator for the household sector.
Growth in median British real household incomes by Prime Minister since 1977
03 Nov 2015 2 Comments
in applied welfare economics, economic growth, economic history, macroeconomics
The only two periods of sustained increases in median equivalised British real household disposable income is was under Mrs Thatcher, once she got going on Thatchernomics and under Tony Blair. Despite the ups and downs, real household incomes more than doubled in Britain since the winter of discontent. Equivalised income takes account of changes in the composition of households such as more single-parent households and fewer children since 1977.
Source: Release Edition Reference Tables – ONS.
Notes:
1 Households are ranked by their equivalised disposable incomes, using the modified-OECD scale.
2 1994/95 represents the financial year ending 1995, and similarly through to 2014/15, which represents the financial year ending 2015.
3 Income figures have been deflated to 2014/15 prices using an implied deflator for the household sector
@resfoundation shows @jeremycorbyn how good it was under Blair
02 Nov 2015 Leave a comment
in applied welfare economics, economic history, labour economics, poverty and inequality
10 years ago today some kid dropped out of Harvard to work on some website
02 Nov 2015 Leave a comment
in economic history, economics of media and culture, entrepreneurship, industrial organisation, survivor principle Tags: creative destruction, entrepreneurial alertness, Facebook
The Great Escape in European life expectancies
02 Nov 2015 Leave a comment
in economic history Tags: life expectancies, The Great Escape
Trends in life expectancy for Western European countries. Scotland in red. 😦 (From: sciencedirect.com/science/articl…) http://t.co/IEEyQdG9E1—
Stuart Ritchie (@StuartJRitchie) October 19, 2015
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