The ACT Party has announced a new policy that would:Remove the existing Permanent Resident visa category;Require all Resident Visa holders to receive a 5 year travel facility, replacing the current two-year initial travel condition;Require all Resident Visa holders to be physically present in New Zealand for at least 730 days within any rolling five-year period,…
Disappointing
Disappointing
01 Sep 2026 1 Comment
in human capital, labour economics, labour supply, politics - New Zealand, population economics Tags: economics of immigration
Do labour markets behave like competitive markets?
01 Sep 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, econometerics, history of economic thought, industrial organisation, labour economics, labour supply Tags: competition law, monopsony
The American evidence is that they frequently do not. For over a century there was a separate Department of Labour, which was amalgamated into that vast miscellaneous department, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment. Today there is no Minister of Labour, while the portfolios of workplace relations and safety and of immigration are held […]
Do labour markets behave like competitive markets?
Elon Musk did well for a penniless immigrant
31 Aug 2026 Leave a comment
in economics of education, energy economics, human capital, labour supply, poverty and inequality
Federal Court Rules Speech-Based Deportations Violate the First Amendment
30 Aug 2026 1 Comment
in labour economics, labour supply, law and economics, politics - USA Tags: economics of immigration, free speech
The decision goes further than other similar recent rulings.
Federal Court Rules Speech-Based Deportations Violate the First Amendment
Part II: Demographics + Entitlements = Europe’s Doom
25 Aug 2026 Leave a comment
in economic growth, labour economics, labour supply, macroeconomics, population economics, public economics Tags: ageing society, European Union, population bust
The world’s most under-appreciated problem is demographic decline mixed with tax-and-transfer entitlement programs. Those two factors, when combined, are a massive problem. All of which is explained in my series on demographic change and fiscal crisis (see here, here, here, here, and here). Today, let’s focus on the problem in Europe, building on what I […]
Part II: Demographics + Entitlements = Europe’s Doom
College-educated women have maintained stable marriage rates by partnering with high-earning non-college men, shrinking the pool of economically viable partners available to non-college women
24 Aug 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, discrimination, econometerics, economics of love and marriage, gender, human capital, labour economics, labour supply, law and economics, occupational choice, population economics, poverty and inequality
See Gender Disparities in College Enrollment and Marriage Patterns by Clara Chambers, Benjamin Goldman & Joseph Winkelmann.”Over the past half-century, the gender composition of American college campuses has shifted from predominantly male to predominantly female. Today, 1.6 million more women than men attend four-year colleges in the US. Over the same time period, the economic status…
College-educated women have maintained stable marriage rates by partnering with high-earning non-college men, shrinking the pool of economically viable partners available to non-college women
The Confucian fertility paradox
21 Aug 2026 Leave a comment
in development economics, econometerics, economic history, economics of love and marriage, growth miracles, labour economics, labour supply, law and economics, population economics
Total fertility rates in East Asia have fallen to levels without historical precedent, even though the region’s Confucian heritage long placed extraordinary emphasis on family continuity and large families. We argue that this “Confucian Fertility Paradox” dissolves once we separate two strands of the tradition and recognize that modernization affected them very differently. The pro-natal…
The Confucian fertility paradox
Did UBI make people happier?
21 Aug 2026 1 Comment
in applied price theory, labour economics, labour supply, welfare reform
Eh, only in the short run: We study the causal impacts of income on a rich array of employment outcomes, leveraging an experiment in which 1,000 low-income individuals were randomized into receiving $1,000 per month unconditionally for three years, with a control group of 2,000 participants receiving $50/month. We gather detailed survey data, administrative records,…
Did UBI make people happier?
The effects of remote work on the disability employment gap
17 Aug 2026 Leave a comment
in discrimination, gender, human capital, labour economics, labour supply, transport economics, urban economics Tags: gender wage gap, sex discrimination
A rise in work from home explains most of the postpandemic gain in full-time employment among people with physical disabilitiesBy Tyler Smith. “Employment among people with disabilities has remained well below that of the broader population, with an average disability employment gap of 27 percentage points across OECD countries. In the United States, this low disability…
The effects of remote work on the disability employment gap
Alex Tabarrok: Britain’s equal pay madness
16 Aug 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, Austrian economics, discrimination, economics of education, gender, health and safety, human capital, industrial organisation, labour economics, labour supply, occupational choice, poverty and inequality Tags: affirmative action, gender wage gap, pay equity, sex discrimination
The Taliban, Women and the Far Left
15 Aug 2026 1 Comment
in defence economics, discrimination, economics of education, economics of religion, gender, human capital, labour economics, labour supply, war and peace Tags: Afghanistan
It is five years today since the Taliban took control of Afghanistan. On 15 August 2021, its forces entered Kabul as the Afghan government collapsed and the long Western intervention came to an ignominious end. Five years later, the consequences for Afghan women are appalling. The Taliban has issued more than 100 decrees restricting the […]
The Taliban, Women and the Far Left
Incentive Misalignment in Communism: the case of Vietnam
15 Aug 2026 1 Comment
in applied price theory, development economics, economic history, growth disasters, history of economic thought, industrial organisation, labour economics, labour supply, Marxist economics Tags: economics of central planning, Vietnam
Rainer Zitelmann writes in How Capitalism Beat Communism in Vietnam in Reason Magazine, The state collectives did not reward members for the amount of rice they produced, but instead counted how many days they had worked. 183 more words
Incentive Misalignment in Communism: the case of Vietnam
Immigration and Macroeconomic Outcomes in OECD Countries
10 Aug 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, econometerics, economic history, human capital, labour economics, labour supply Tags: economics of immigration
OECD countries experienced declining native population growth and rising net immigration over 1990-2024. We compile a new dataset of net immigration rates to OECD countries from all origins and show that most of the increase came from non-OECD countries and was predominantly high-skilled. Push factors, network effects, and policy indices explain little of the large…
Immigration and Macroeconomic Outcomes in OECD Countries
The power of incentives with illegal migration
08 Aug 2026 Leave a comment
in Economics of international refugee law, international economic law, international economics, International law, labour economics, labour supply, law and economics, politics - USA Tags: economics of immigration
At the end of June the Spanish Supreme Court ruled that migrants arriving by sea could not be summarily deported. A few weeks later 60,000 people from Morocco crossed in the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, almost doubling their population in a few days. People smugglers exploit situations. This is why you need harsh preventive measures.…
The power of incentives with illegal migration
New Zealand shows how to solve the equal pay crisis
07 Aug 2026 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, discrimination, economic history, economics of regulation, gender, human capital, labour economics, labour supply, occupational choice, poverty and inequality Tags: gender wage gap
Outgoing governments often try to craft a legacy for themselves by introducing policy traps that incoming governments find hard to undo, such as Rishi Sunak’s National Insurance cuts in 2024 or Gordon Brown’s introduction of the 50p top rate of income tax in 2010. Keir Starmer just did something similar by initiating a huge expansion in the […]
New Zealand shows how to solve the equal pay crisis
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