Celebrating humanity's flourishing through the spread of capitalism and the rule of law
20 Feb 2016 Leave a comment
in fiscal policy, industrial organisation, politics - New Zealand, public economics Tags: government ownership, privatisation, state owned enterprises
Two dogs of an investment propped up a $20 billion portfolio that a few years later was worth less than 1/5 of that. Both of these stalwarts are now worth not even one dollar.
Source:New Zealand Treasury – information released under the Official Information Act, January 2016.
18 Feb 2016 Leave a comment
in economic history, industrial organisation, politics - New Zealand, public economics Tags: government ownership, KiwiRail, New Zealand Greens, New Zealand Labor Party, privatisation, rational irrationality, state owned enterprises
With a straight face, the Labour Party and the Greens claim that state-owned enterprises should not be sold because taxpayers give up the future dividend stream.
Source: New Zealand Treasury – data released under the Official Information Act.
Leaving to one side what the sale price is the net present value of, for as far back as I could obtain data from the Treasury, it is a rare year in which the taxpayers does not pour more money into state-owned enterprises than they get back in dividends.
Transpower is carrying the entire state-owned enterprise portfolio. Earlier on, Solid Energy – a now bankrupt coal mining company– was carrying the portfolio in terms of cash flow to the taxpayer.
18 Feb 2016 Leave a comment
in industrial organisation, politics - USA, public economics Tags: KiwiRail, privatisation, state owned enterprises
Source: New Zealand Treasury – data released under the Official Information Act.
18 Feb 2016 1 Comment
in applied welfare economics, economic history, entrepreneurship, financial economics, industrial organisation Tags: billionaires, entrepreneurial alertness, Philippines, superstars, top 1%
A surprisingly large number of Filipino billionaires are in the financial sector.
17 Feb 2016 Leave a comment
in applied welfare economics, development economics, economic history, economics of regulation, entrepreneurship, growth disasters, growth miracles, industrial organisation Tags: billionaires, entrepreneurial alertness, India, superstars, top 1%
A decent number of India’s billionaires founded a company.
16 Feb 2016 Leave a comment
in applied welfare economics, economic history, economics of regulation, entrepreneurship, financial economics, human capital, industrial organisation, labour economics, poverty and inequality, survivor principle Tags: billionaires, British economy, entrepreneurial alertness, superstars, top 1%
Inheriting wealth is not what it used to be in Britain. There are all these upstarts running businesses or working in the City.
15 Feb 2016 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, development economics, economic history, entrepreneurship, growth miracles, human capital, industrial organisation, labour economics Tags: billionaires, China, entrepreneurial alertness, superstars, top 1%
14 Feb 2016 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, history of economic thought, industrial organisation, international economics Tags: division of labour, spontaneous order
13 Feb 2016 Leave a comment
in economics of bureaucracy, economics of regulation, energy economics, entrepreneurship, industrial organisation, poverty and inequality, privatisation, rentseeking, resource economics
The 1826 Billionaires in the Forbes 2015 list are classified as rich through political connections if they made their money through past political positions, close relatives or friends in government, or questionable licenses, privatisations or resource extraction industries.
All privatizations were included in the politically-connected/resource-related category despite my data source acknowledging the possibility that the new owners may have transformed the company. Resource billionaires were all deemed to be lucky or cronies by my data source rather than diligent as some most certainly were. This is something of a slur by my data source given the industriousness of some resource billionaires some of whom were even geologists.
Political cronyism is a path to billionaire wealth mainly in the developing countries. Less than 10% of Chinese billionaires made their money through political connections, which is surprising.
13 Feb 2016 Leave a comment
in cricket, economic history, economics of information, economics of media and culture, entrepreneurship, industrial organisation, Ronald Coase, sports economics Tags: advertising, Australia, entrepreneurial alertness
13 Feb 2016 Leave a comment
in entrepreneurship, history of economic thought, industrial organisation, Joseph Schumpeter
12 Feb 2016 Leave a comment
in economic history, entrepreneurship, industrial organisation Tags: creative destruction, Hollywood economics
11 Feb 2016 Leave a comment
in industrial organisation, law and economics, property rights Tags: doing business
In some countries, the official and legal fees of setting up a business are trivial but in other countries they start to mount up.
Source: Data from the Doing Business Project – World Bank Group.
10 Feb 2016 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, industrial organisation, law and economics, property rights Tags: doing business, EU, Europe
For a rich country, Luxembourg is a pretty crappy place to do business – worse than Greece. Mostly due to terrible rankings for the Luxembourg legal system. Italy is not much better.
Source: Ranking of economies – Doing Business – World Bank Group.
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