I’m currently in Finland for meetings with various people and I learned that the country’s bloated public sector and expensive welfare state are imposing a very heavy cost on the economy. How heavy of a cost? According to IMF data, there’s been no growth in per-capita GDP over the past 18 years. Why is Finland […]
Fertility rates are falling around the world, but Republic of Korea is the outlier, with a fertility rate of 0.72 in 2024. The International Monetary Fund, in its report on Korea’s economic situation (generally quite good), thought that Korea’s low fertility justified adding an “Annex” to its most recent report on Korea’s economy: “Addressing Korea’s…
Labour leader Chris Hipkins has joined the chorus of those opposing changes to pay equity legislation. Does this mean he knows what a woman is now? It is easy for opposition parties and their allies to criticise proposed changes but Heather du Plessis-Allan points out the problem with existing legislation: . . . Those pay […]
It was once said that possession is nine-tenths of the law, an acknowledgement that the possessor of property generally has the advantage in keeping it. This principle has been taken to absurd extremes in some squatter cases, where people invade homes and then demand the right to stay pending long legal challenges. Today, under both […]
I’ve written a couple of times about information interventions designed to attract more female students to study economics (see here and here). The results have generally been disappointing. That shouldn’t be too much of a surprise. If it was really simple to get people to change their behaviour with information, then advertising would be far…
As I reported two weeks ago, the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom voted unanimously to affirm that the term “woman” under the legal Equality Act refers only to biological women and not trans-identified men. That means that a biological male holding a gender reassignment certificate would not have the same legal status as a […]
Trans activists and their supporters have confused feelings with facts in trying to convince themselves, and others, that sex isn’t binary. Science disproves that: Here’s why sex is binary, explained in 5 minutes. pic.twitter.com/DuX7Yk7Z0f — Zachary Elliott (@zaelefty) April 26, 2025
Below is my column in the New York Post on the first 100 days of the Trump Administration in court. It is too early to handicap many of these lower courts decisions. I have been critical of some of these orders as either premature or unconstitutional. There is a reason for the hyperkinetic pace of […]
In its most recent World Economic Outlook report, the IMF includes a chapter on “The Rise of the Silver Economy: Global Implications of Population Aging” (April 2025). Here are the big trends in a nutshell. The red line (measured on the right-hand axis) shows that the average age of the global poulation was about 27…
Compulsory first-year courses come under fire. Graham Adams writes – This year, the University of Auckland launched mandatory courses focused on a particular view of New Zealand history, Te Tiriti, and indigenous “knowledge systems”— which is to say mātauranga Māori — for all first-year students. It doesn’t matter whether you’re studying engineering, accounting, science or arts, you […]
For some on the far left, “The Rachel Maddow Show” is a godsend. Otherwise, you would have to go to the subway to compete against others raving about microchips and oligarchies. Just take Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), who went on the show on Friday to explain that Trump officials can now be arrested for “interfering with […]
After the Supreme Court declared an end to the use of race criteria in college admissions, many administrators pledged to find a way around the decision. Schools are using essay prompts to flag race while rejecting the use of standardized testing to boost diversity in admissions. In the meantime, these schools are rejecting students with […]
Today, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on a major parental rights case in Mahmoud v. Taylor, a challenge to Montgomery County (Md.) requiring their children to participate in instruction that includes LGBTQ+ themes. It is a case that could produce sweeping changes across the county as parents object to the use of public […]
This short note shows that accounting for capital adjustment is critical when analyzing the long-run effects of trade wars on real wages and consumption. The reason is that trade wars increase the relative price between investment goods and labor by taxing imported investment goods and their inputs. This price shift depresses capital demand, shrinks the […]
Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
“We do not believe any group of men adequate enough or wise enough to operate without scrutiny or without criticism. We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it, that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. We know that in secrecy error undetected will flourish and subvert”. - J Robert Oppenheimer.
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