PRESCOTT on quality adjusted medical price indexes
17 Sep 2025 Leave a comment
in economic growth, economic history, Edward Prescott, health economics, macroeconomics
Stephen Tierney: The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill – a dangerous licence for executive law-making
15 Sep 2025 Leave a comment
in health economics, liberalism Tags: British constitutional law, British politics, end-of-life choice
The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill is now in the House of Lords. After months of frantic activity in the Commons there is an opportunity for Parliament to draw breath and for the upper house to consider this measure carefully. It already has two critical committee reports published by the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee and […]
Stephen Tierney: The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill – a dangerous licence for executive law-making
10 great questions the Royal Commission should ask
10 Sep 2025 Leave a comment
in health economics, politics - New Zealand Tags: economics of pandemics
Two professors of economics have 10 questions they would have out to former Ministers about Covid-19. Hopefully these have been put by the Royal Commission. They are: I will be very disappointed if questions like these were not put to the former Ministers.
10 great questions the Royal Commission should ask
Why Do Americans Work So Many Hours?
10 Sep 2025 1 Comment
in health economics, labour economics, labour supply, politics - USA
Compared to workers in most other high-income countries, Americans tend to work more hours per year. Here’s a figure from the OECD, which is based on taking the total number of hours worked in an economy and dividing it by the number of workers for the most recent year available. Because different countries will measure…
Why Do Americans Work So Many Hours?
American Humanist vigorously endorses “affirmative care” with no lower age limit
06 Sep 2025 Leave a comment
in discrimination, economics of education, gender, health economics, liberalism, Marxist economics, politics - USA Tags: free speech, political correctness, regressive left, sex discrimination
The American Humanist Association (AHA) is among the most prominent humanist/atheist/skeptical organizations in America, but it’s been getting increasingly “progressive” (read “woke”). You may remember that in 2021 the AHA revoked its “Humanist of the Year” award given to Richard Dawkins 15 years earlier, saying this: Regrettably, Richard Dawkins has over the past several years […]
American Humanist vigorously endorses “affirmative care” with no lower age limit
Prebble on Covid unaccountability
06 Sep 2025 Leave a comment
in economics of regulation, health economics, law and economics, politics - New Zealand Tags: economics of pandemics
Richard Prebble writes: A Royal Commission is our nation’s highest form of inquiry, reserved for the most important issues. To ensure confidence in its findings, commissioners have the power to summon witnesses and take their evidence in public under oath. In my research, apart from health reasons, the only person to have ever refused to […]
Prebble on Covid unaccountability
Ten questions we would have asked of Ardern, Hipkins, Robertson and Verrall
25 Aug 2025 Leave a comment
in economics of bureaucracy, health economics, politics - New Zealand, Public Choice Tags: economics of pandemics
Ananish Chaudhuri and John Gibson write – It is a pity that the Ministers who were central to formulating our Covid response have refused to show up to public hearings. We understand that in the past, private interviews of Ministers may have been the norm. But according to this same group, Covid was a once […]
Ten questions we would have asked of Ardern, Hipkins, Robertson and Verrall
Maori life expectancy rising the fastest
20 Aug 2025 1 Comment
in economic history, health economics Tags: life expectancies
Stats NZ have published the latest life expectancy at birth data. Here’s the increase for each ethnic and gender group from 2006 to 2023. This is what TPM presumably calls genocide!
Maori life expectancy rising the fastest
Treasury states what we all knew
14 Aug 2025 Leave a comment
in fiscal policy, health economics, income redistribution, macroeconomics, politics - New Zealand, Public Choice, public economics Tags: economics of pandemics
The Herald reports: A new Treasury paper has criticised the last Government for overspending during the pandemic, leaving the country with a high level of public debt that makes it vulnerable to future shocks. The paper calculated the total cost of the pandemic at about $66 billion. It put the total fiscal contribution to the […]
Treasury states what we all knew
Tenth Circuit: Parents Do Not Have Right to Override Ban on Gender Transitioning of Minors
12 Aug 2025 Leave a comment
in discrimination, economics of regulation, gender, health economics, law and economics, liberalism, Marxist economics, politics - USA, property rights Tags: political correctness, regressive left, sex discrimination
The Tenth Circuit handed down a notable opinion this week in Poe v. Drummond, upholding Oklahoma’s law prohibiting gender transition procedures for anyone under eighteen. The opinion by Judge Joel Carson (joined by Judges Harris Hartz and Gregory Phillips) concluded that parental rights do not trump a state’s determination of what are safe treatments for […]
Tenth Circuit: Parents Do Not Have Right to Override Ban on Gender Transitioning of Minors
Planned Parenthood going the way of the ACLU and the SPLC?
23 Jul 2025 Leave a comment
in discrimination, gender, health economics, liberalism, Marxist economics, politics - USA Tags: free speech, political correctness, regressive left, sex discrimination
Luana called my attention to an article on wokeness, in this case describing the ideological erosion of Planned Parenthood (henceforth “PP). Click the headline below to read the WSJ “Saturday essay”, or or find it archived free here. Notice that the author is Pamela Paul, formerly the Sunday book-review editor and then a columnist for […]
Planned Parenthood going the way of the ACLU and the SPLC?
Hipkins’ role as Covid czar thrust into spotlight
16 Jul 2025 Leave a comment
in health economics, politics - New Zealand Tags: anti-vaccination movement, economics of pandemics
Labour leader can no longer pretend to be the Man Who Wasn’t There Graham Adams writes – When Chris Hipkins replaced Jacinda Ardern as Prime Minister in January 2023, the legacy media preposterously promoted him as a new broom. By promising a “policy bonfire” of some of the issues that had led to Labour’s plunging […]
Hipkins’ role as Covid czar thrust into spotlight
Technology Transfer and Development Economics
14 Jul 2025 1 Comment
in development economics, health economics, history of economic thought, industrial organisation, international economics Tags: technology diffusion
Willis Carrier invented modern air conditioning around 1904 but technological innovations often take a long time to travel to less developed regions of the world. FT.
Technology Transfer and Development Economics
#TheGreatEscape
11 Jul 2025 Leave a comment
in development economics, economic history, growth disasters, growth miracles, health economics Tags: India, Pakistan
Why do Māori have to rely on deceased kidney donors?
08 Jul 2025 Leave a comment
in health economics, politics - New Zealand
Systemic racism or an inconveniently multifaceted set of problems requiring uncomfortable conversations Ani O’Brien writes – It is a fact that the life expectancy of Māori is lower than New Zealanders of European descent. It is also a fact that the life expectancy of New Zealanders of European descent is lower than that of Asian […]
Why do Māori have to rely on deceased kidney donors?
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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