Winston should be ashamed
Myth, Memory and the BNZ
Myth, Memory and the BNZ
22 May 2026 Leave a comment
in comparative institutional analysis, economic history, economics of regulation, industrial organisation, law and economics, politics - New Zealand, privatisation, property rights
The economics of unions
22 May 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, comparative institutional analysis, econometerics, economic history, industrial organisation, labour economics, survivor principle, unions
My best read of the evidence is that a union raises wages by around 7% for currently unionized employees. The wage gains from a redistribution of rents evenly across workers. Wage compression exists, but redistribution from worker to worker is only a small part. These are the current effects – unionizing more of the economy […]
The economics of unions
The Regulator has confirmed the NZ economy is rigged
18 May 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economics of regulation, industrial organisation, politics - New Zealand Tags: competition law
The Commerce Commission’s “State of Competition in New Zealand” report landed on Tuesday. It is arguably the most important economic document of the political year. It names four sectors as the country’s least competitive: electricity, gas, water and waste services; financial and insurance services; information media and telecommunications; and mining. The night before the report […]
The Regulator has confirmed the NZ economy is rigged
They Don’t Deserve the Benefit of the Doubt
17 May 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, industrial organisation, international economics, politics - USA Tags: free trade, tarrifs
TweetHere’s a letter to a new correspondent. Mr. H__: Thanks for your email. You write, in response to this post of mine, that I am “too quick at second guessing the president and his administration on its determination of the trade behaviors of other countries.” You say that I “owe the administration the benefit of…
They Don’t Deserve the Benefit of the Doubt
Bigger than Ben Hur
16 May 2026 1 Comment
in Austrian economics, economics of regulation, health economics, industrial organisation, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand Tags: black markets, economics of smoking
Radio NZ reports: Deakin University associate criminology professor Dr James Martin told RNZ the Australian approach had relied on enforcement to suppress the black market. “This has been really ineffective,” he said. “We’ve got between 50-60 percent of all tobacco and nearly all vaping products in Australia now come from criminal suppliers, and it’s generated…
Bigger than Ben Hur
A good idea for supermarket competition
14 May 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economics of regulation, entrepreneurship, industrial organisation, politics - New Zealand, urban economics Tags: competition law, land supply, zoning
The Spinoff reports: Both Labour and National governments have considered the idea of breaking up the big two but ultimately decided against it. A 2023 analysis by MBIE suggested forcibly breaking up the supermarkets could cost as much as $3.8 billion over 20 years, mostly due to the loss of economies of scale. It could make wholesale and distribution…
A good idea for supermarket competition
Bonus Quotation of the Day…
13 May 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economic history, entrepreneurship, history of economic thought, industrial organisation, survivor principle Tags: industry policy
Tweet… is from page 8 of Scott Lincicome’s and Huan Zhu’s superb September 2021 paper, “Questioning Industrial Policy: Why Government Manufacturing Plans Are Ineffective and Unnecessary”: A core part of industrial policy’s knowledge problem is timing: because markets and personal preferences are constantly evolving, the facts (products, investments, supply and demand, etc.) on which an…
Bonus Quotation of the Day…
A Hiccup in a Price War
08 May 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, entrepreneurship, industrial organisation, transport economics
Many antitrust economists are wary of the efficacy of predatory pricing, the strategy of pricing below costs to drive a competitor out of a market. The usual counter-argument is that, for it to work, the inevitable losses this will entail must be recouped after the rival has exited. Recoupment requires higher prices … that can…
A Hiccup in a Price War
China Shock 2.0 vs. China Shock 1.0
04 May 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, development economics, econometerics, economic history, growth miracles, history of economic thought, industrial organisation, international economics, survivor principle Tags: China, free trade
TweetThis post by Oxford economist J. Zachary Mazlish is very good; I encourage you to read it. (HT David Levey) Nevertheless, there are two points that I think to be worth making in response to Mazlish’s post. I will here make one of these points. I’ll make the other of these points in a follow-up…
China Shock 2.0 vs. China Shock 1.0
The Luddites Were the First to Attack AI
28 Apr 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economic history, industrial organisation, labour economics, labour supply Tags: creative destruction
Everyone knows the Luddites smashed looms. What is less appreciated is that the loom was the first serious programmable device — the direct ancestor of the computer. Thus, the Luddites weren’t just the first to resist automation. They were the first to attack AI. The Jacquard loom, introduced in France circa 1805, used a chain…
The Luddites Were the First to Attack AI
Quotation of the Day…
27 Apr 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economic history, entrepreneurship, history of economic thought, industrial organisation Tags: industry policy
Tweet… is from page 815 of Richard Nelson’s and Richard Langlois’s February 1983 Science paper titled “Industrial Innovation Policy: Lessons from American History”: A quick reading of the case studies is enough to dash any supposition that technological change is somehow a cleanly plannable activity. In fact, it is an activity characterized as much by…
Quotation of the Day…
The Australian government has ‘subscription traps’ in its sights
26 Apr 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economics of information, industrial organisation
As I noted in a post last week, firms are increasingly selling subscriptions rather than products because consumer inertia can make them substantially more profitable. Once a customer starts a subscription, they tend not to cancel the subscription as soon as they should, simply because it requires some thought and attention (as well as a…
The Australian government has ‘subscription traps’ in its sights
Quotation of the Day…
25 Apr 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, history of economic thought, industrial organisation, international economics, labour economics, labour supply Tags: India
Tweet… is from page 150 of Columbia University economics professor Arvind Panagariya’s brilliant 2019 book, Free Trade and Prosperity: In India, Bihar is the poorest state and Kerala one of the richest. Going by the Gini coefficient, Bihar is among the states with the least inequality and Kerala among those with the highest inequality. If…
Quotation of the Day…
The President(s) Fought the Law and the Law Won
18 Apr 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economic history, history of economic thought, income redistribution, industrial organisation, international economics, labour economics, labour supply, politics - USA, poverty and inequality, Public Choice, rentseeking, survivor principle Tags: creative destruction, free trade, tarrifs
In our textbook, Modern Principles, Tyler and I emphasize that Congress and the President are subject to a higher law, the law of supply and demand. In an excellent column, Jason Furman gives a clear example of how difficult it is to fight the law of inelastic demand: …Today a given number of autoworkers can…
The President(s) Fought the Law and the Law Won
‘Market Power in Antitrust: Economic Analysis after Kodak,’ by Benjamin Klein
17 Apr 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economics of regulation, history of economic thought, industrial organisation, law and economics, politics - USA Tags: competition law
In 1992, the U.S. Supreme Court held in Eastman Kodak Co. v. Image Technical Services that a firm without market power in photocopiers might still possess market power in photocopier parts and service. The Court’s logic turned on opportunistic hold-up: Kodak could profit by trading short-run exploitation of locked-in customers for long-run losses in equipment…
‘Market Power in Antitrust: Economic Analysis after Kodak,’ by Benjamin Klein
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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