Adult start of a criminal career is rare and associated with fewer and less serious crimes. https://t.co/fBKY3I4FWR pic.twitter.com/o6ZhPhdTIe
— Rolf Degen (@DegenRolf) August 18, 2016
An adult start of a criminal career is uncommon
18 Aug 2016 Leave a comment
in economics of crime, human capital, labour economics, law and economics, occupational choice Tags: crime and punishment, criminal deterrence, law and order
% employees working more than 50 hours per week, 2014 OECD area
15 Aug 2016 6 Comments
in labour economics, labour supply, occupational choice, public economics Tags: hours worked, taxation and labour supply
Not coincidentally, countries with high marginal income tax rates have low levels of long hours worked per week.
Data extracted on 14 Aug 2016 01:52 UTC (GMT) from OECD.Stat; Data does not include the self-employed.
College and post-graduate wage premium in the English speaking countries, France, S. Korea, Finland, Denmark, Norway and Sweden
31 Jul 2016 Leave a comment
in economics of education, human capital, labour economics, occupational choice Tags: Australia, British economy, Canada, College premium, Denmark, education premium, Finland, France, graduate premium, Ireland, Korea, Norway, post-graduate premium, Sweden
Source: Education at a Glance 2015, section 6.
Political leanings of American professors @robhosking
29 Jul 2016 2 Comments
in economics of education, labour economics, occupational choice, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA Tags: academic bias
Sociologists are rather level-headed compared to that hotbed of political bias, which is American history professors. Hardly any of them see themselves as a Republican. I must take back a few nasty things I said about political bias and sociologists.
Source: THE SOCIAL AND POLITICAL VIEWS OF AMERICAN PROFESSORS Neil Gross and Solon Simmons, Working Paper, September 24, 2007
Is academic philosophy a “safe space” for women?
23 Jul 2016 Leave a comment
in discrimination, economics of education, gender, labour economics, occupational choice Tags: gender wage gap
% Australian top incomes from wages, salaries and pensions since 1954
19 Jul 2016 Leave a comment
in economic history, human capital, industrial organisation, labour economics, occupational choice, politics - Australia, poverty and inequality Tags: Australia, CEO pay, superstar wages, superstars, top 1%, top incomes
Australia has had a working rich for a long time now. Australian top income earners are top wage earners. They are athletes, celebrities, business executives and in the professions.
Source: The World Wealth and Income Database.
% US top incomes from wages, salaries and pensions, 1913 – 2015,
18 Jul 2016 Leave a comment
in applied welfare economics, economic history, human capital, industrial organisation, labour economics, occupational choice, politics - USA, poverty and inequality, survivor principle Tags: CEO pay, entrepreneurial alertness, superstar wages, superstars, top 1%, top incomes
The rich in the USA long ago became a working rich; most top incomes are from wages and salaries.
Source: The World Wealth and Income Database.
NZ top income earners as lazy as ever @MaxRashbrooke @CloserTogether
17 Jul 2016 Leave a comment
in economic history, human capital, labour economics, occupational choice, politics - New Zealand, poverty and inequality Tags: Leftover Left, pessimism bias, top 1%, top incomes, Twitter left
Max Rashbrooke was good enough to remind us that the 2013 update of New Zealand top income shares came online a few days ago.
As is well known to everyone except those obsessed with top income shares, New Zealand top income shares have not changed much since the late 1980s. They are now no higher than in the good old days when New Zealand was an egalitarian paradise in their eyes.
Source: The World Wealth and Income Database.
Average top incomes in New Zealand
05 Jul 2016 Leave a comment
in human capital, labour economics, labour supply, occupational choice, poverty and inequality Tags: creative destruction, entrepreneurial alertness, top 1%
The average top income in New Zealand is that of a professional, executive or entrepreneur.
Source: The World Wealth and Income Database.
Where do ISIS foreign fighters come from and why?
04 Jul 2016 Leave a comment
in defence economics, labour economics, occupational choice
ISIS foreign fighters are not driven by economic deprivation or inequality. In What Explains the Flow of Foreign Fighters to ISIS? (NBER Working Paper No. 22190),Efraim Benmelech
and Esteban F. Klor found that many foreign fighters come from countries with high levels of economic development, low income inequality, and highly developed political institutions.
Foreign ISIS recruits come largely from prosperous, ethnically and linguistically homogeneous countries. As Alan Krueger explains in a discussion of terrorism is an occupational choice:
One of the conclusions from the work of Laurence Iannaccone—whose paper, “The Market for Martyrs,” is supported by my own research—is that it is very difficult to effect change on the supply side.
People who are willing to sacrifice themselves for a cause have diverse motivations. Some are motivated by nationalism, some by religious fanaticism, some by historical grievances, and so on. If we address one motivation and thus reduce one source on the supply side, there remain other motivations that will incite other people to terror.
Malcontents join the jihadists today for the same reasons they joined the Red Brigade, the Japanese Red Army Faction and Baader-Meinhof gang in the 1970s and 1980s. Plenty of young people were attracted to communism in previous generations as a way of sticking it to the man.
Now as then economic conditions were good as were political freedoms. Italy, Japan and Germany were all at the peak of recoveries from war. Japanese incomes are doubled in the previous decade. Germany and Italy were rich countries. As Alan Krueger explains:
Despite these pronouncements, however, the available evidence is nearly unanimous in rejecting either material deprivation or inadequate education as important causes of support for terrorism or participation in terrorist activities. Such explanations have been embraced almost entirely on faith, not scientific evidence.
Each generation has its defining oppositional identity. Radical Islam is the oppositional identity of choice for today’s angry young men and women. Mind you, they have to buy Islam for dummies to understand what they’re signing up for.
In previous generations, it was communism, weird Christian sects, eco-terrorism, animal liberationist terrorism and a variety of domestic terrorists of the left and right with conspiratorial motivations. Look at the level of diversity of the angry young men and women on the domestic terrorists list of the FBI.
One jihadists when interviewed said that 30 years ago he would probably have become a Communist as his vehicle for venting his frustrations.
Wage gaps by gender, race and ethnicity persist in the USA
03 Jul 2016 Leave a comment
in discrimination, economics of education, gender, human capital, labour economics, labour supply, occupational choice, politics - USA Tags: employer discrimination, ethnic wage gap, gender wage gap, racial discrimination, racial wage gap
Work-life balance drives what is left of the gender wage gap
30 Jun 2016 Leave a comment
in discrimination, gender, occupational choice
.@nzteu is right, student loans entrench inequality
29 Jun 2016 Leave a comment
in economics of education, economics of love and marriage, human capital, labour economics, occupational choice, poverty and inequality Tags: power couples, student loans
Those of European ethnicity had a median net worth of $114,000, compared with $23,000 for Māori , $12,000 for Pasifika and $33,000 for Asians according to the latest Statistics New Zealand data just released.
The Tertiary Education Union made great play about how much of the low net worth of young people and others is due to student loans
Young people (aged 15–24) had the lowest individual median net worth of any age group – just $1,000. The most common debt for young people is education loans.
The union then goes on to say that
Median education loan liabilities are only one-tenth of Pākehā people’s median assets, but they are a quarter of Māori people’s assets and over a third of Pacific people’s assets (table 7.01).
The data shows that the households with the smallest median net worth have the largest median education loans (table 2.02). These loans make up nearly a quarter of their total debt (table 2.03).
Over a third of households within the poorest quintile of net worth have education loans, whereas less than a tenth of households in the wealthiest quintile have education debt (table 2.04).
In a nutshell, not enough people are going to university because of the prospect of repaying student loans and more would go if it were cheaper and that would reducing inequality. The explosion in tertiary educational attendance over the last generation, an increase of about 150% for the adult population aged 25 to 64 was not good enough to reduce inequality.
Free tuition at University is a hand-out to those already had a good start in life. It will be paid for by those who will never go because they do not have an above average IQ.
How much more will you earn by going to university? It depends hugely on which country you're from http://t.co/7RMnUTM8nj—
paulkirby (@paul1kirby) September 11, 2015
Low-cost student loans were supposed to be away to reduce inequality. Instead, they give a flying start to those of already above-average talents. If social justice is to mean anything, it does not involve giving freebies to those who already have a head start in life.
The average student loan debt is about $14,000 while the lifetime earnings premium from university education is about $1/2 million in New Zealand.
Source: Statistics New Zealand, Household net worth statistics: Year ended 30 June 2015.
Lowering university tuition fees and easing the terms of student loans simply means that those who do well at university will not have to pay back as much to the government. People who succeed at university already have above average IQs so they already had a good head start in life.
Charles Murray points out that succeeded at college requires an IQ of at least 115 but 84% of the population don’t have this:
Historically, an IQ of 115 or higher was deemed to make someone “prime college material.” That range comprises about 16 per cent of the population. Since 28 per cent of all adults have BAs, the IQ required to get a degree these days is obviously a lot lower than 115.
Cheaper higher education does not help the not so smart secure a qualification they lack the innate talent to earn with decent marks and increases the chance of smart men and women marrying. This increases the inequality between power couples and the rest.
Gender preferences for higher earnings vs. other job attributes
25 Jun 2016 Leave a comment
in discrimination, gender, human capital, labour economics, labour supply, occupational choice
Differences in raw gender wage gaps may be almost entirely the result of the individual choices made by both male and female workers.
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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