Lindsay Mitchell writes- When National became government in 2008, Finance Minister Bill English’s determination to understand the extent of benefit-dependency led them to commission Taylor Fry to produce annual actuarial reports. These were duly published at the MSD website every year but ceased when the government changed in 2017. Now however, an Official Information request […]
LINDSAY MITCHELL: Labour hid developing welfare crisis
LINDSAY MITCHELL: Labour hid developing welfare crisis
08 Feb 2024 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economics of education, gender, human capital, labour economics, labour supply, occupational choice, politics - New Zealand, poverty and inequality, welfare reform Tags: child poverty, family poverty
#OTD
06 Feb 2024 Leave a comment
in comparative institutional analysis, discrimination, economic history, law and economics, politics - New Zealand, property rights Tags: constitutional law
📸 Look at this post on Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/share/4VjbNNeEwSJ6ntfW/?mibextid=RXn8sy
Open Borders and Closed Courts: How the Supreme Court Laid the Seeds for the Immigration Crisis
06 Feb 2024 Leave a comment
in economic history, labour economics, labour supply, politics - USA Tags: constitutional law, economics of immigration
Below is my column in The Hill on the worsening situation at the Southern border and how the Supreme Court laid the seeds for this crisis over a decade ago. The courts have left few options for either the states or Congress in compelling the enforcement of federal law. Here is the column:
Open Borders and Closed Courts: How the Supreme Court Laid the Seeds for the Immigration Crisis
Some Links
06 Feb 2024 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, comparative institutional analysis, constitutional political economy, development economics, economic history, economics of regulation, health economics, history of economic thought, labour economics, law and economics, macroeconomics
TweetWriting in the Wall Street Journal, David Henderson and Charley Hooper explain why we should be thankful for high drug prices. Two slices: For Americans, paying for the discovery and development of new drugs rests on our shoulders. If we pay, we get new lifesaving medicines. If we don’t, we don’t. Almost all new drugs…
Some Links
Flying in America Has Actually Never Been Safer
05 Feb 2024 Leave a comment
in economics of regulation, health and safety, transport economics Tags: air accidents, air crash investigations
U.S. airlines have gone nearly 15 years without a fatal crash—and it’s not just luck. The revolution in the skies began with an innovative program that has become a model for the rest of the world.By Ben Cohen of The WSJ. I used the book The Economics of Public Issues in my micro classes. It had…
Flying in America Has Actually Never Been Safer
DON BRASH: WHAT KIND OF COUNTRY DO WE WANT TO BE?
03 Feb 2024 Leave a comment
in comparative institutional analysis, constitutional political economy, discrimination, economic history, income redistribution, law and economics, liberalism, Marxist economics, politics - New Zealand, property rights, Public Choice, rentseeking Tags: Age of Enlightenment, constitutional law, political correctness, racial discrimination, regressive left
Last Sunday, the Sunday Star-Times recalled on its front page the “fiery debate” triggered by my speech to the Orewa Rotary Club just 20 years earlier. Articles by several authors in the same paper brought the debate up-to-date and warned of the dangers of ACT’s Treaty Principles Bill, which the National Party’s coalition agreement with…
DON BRASH: WHAT KIND OF COUNTRY DO WE WANT TO BE?
CNN is confused about sex
02 Feb 2024 Leave a comment
in discrimination, gender, health economics Tags: Age of Enlightenment, free speech, gender gap, political correctness, regressive left, sex discrimination
Here’s a headline at CNN Health that is seemingly confused about what a “woman” is. Note that the word, which means “adult human female” appears blatantly in the headlines, but perhaps the headline writer was ideologically different from the authors: (click on screenshot to read) This is the gist of the article, and, indeed, […]
CNN is confused about sex
Breaking the Culture of Welfare Dependency
02 Feb 2024 Leave a comment
in comparative institutional analysis, development economics, economic history, economics of education, entrepreneurship, health economics, human capital, income redistribution, labour economics, labour supply, law and economics, liberalism, property rights, Public Choice, unemployment, welfare reform Tags: Canada
One hope that has occasionally been expressed since the beginning of the modern era of Treaty of Waitangi (ToW) settlements, has been that the Iwi showered with money and empowered with control of hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars worth of assets, would be able to then make a difference to all the […]
Breaking the Culture of Welfare Dependency
*The Case Against Education* Makes the WSJ
01 Feb 2024 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, econometerics, economics of education, economics of information, human capital, labour economics, labour supply, occupational choice, poverty and inequality Tags: screening, signaling
Douglas Belkin, who has an admirably adversarial publication record on higher ed, spotlights my The Case Against Education in his latest piece in The Wall Street Journal:One result of this transactional attitude has been a sharp increase in cheating. College is one of the few products whose consumers try to get as little out of…
*The Case Against Education* Makes the WSJ
Seymour raises tax and Treaty issues in his “state of the nation” speech (which has not been posted on the Beehive site)
29 Jan 2024 Leave a comment
in comparative institutional analysis, discrimination, economic history, law and economics, politics - New Zealand, property rights, Public Choice Tags: constitutional law
Buzz from the Beehive Just one statement has been posted on the government’s official website since Attorney-General Judith Collins announced the appointment of a new High Court Judge late last week. It deals with education and the government’s aims to get better results from school students.
Seymour raises tax and Treaty issues in his “state of the nation” speech (which has not been posted on the Beehive site)
The Rise of Human Capital
28 Jan 2024 Leave a comment
in Gary Becker, history of economic thought, human capital, labour economics, labour supply
No economist was more responsible for the appreciation, understanding and analysis of the fact that people invest in improving their productivity than was Gary Becker.
The Rise of Human Capital
My letter to the Chicago Maroon about Students for Justice in Palestine
25 Jan 2024 Leave a comment
in defence economics, discrimination, economics of crime, economics of education, law and economics, laws of war, liberalism, Marxist economics, politics - USA, war and peace Tags: Age of Enlightenment, free speech, Gaza Strip, Israel, Middle-East politics, regressive left, war against terror
Over the last several months, I’ve seen and read about demonstrations on our campus by the pro-Palestinian group Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), which apparently has roughly 200 campus branches in the U.S., Canada, and New Zealand. SJP has been particularly active since last year’s October 7 massacre of Israelis and others, which they […]
My letter to the Chicago Maroon about Students for Justice in Palestine
Will Milei succeed in Argentina?
22 Jan 2024 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, budget deficits, comparative institutional analysis, development economics, economic growth, economic history, economics of bureaucracy, economics of regulation, fiscal policy, growth disasters, income redistribution, labour economics, liberalism, libertarianism, macroeconomics, Marxist economics, monetary economics, Public Choice, public economics, rentseeking Tags: Argentina
I give him a 30-40% chance, which is perhaps generous because I am rooting for him. Bryan Caplan, who is more optimistic, offers some analysis and estimates that Milei needs to close a fiscal gap of about five percent of gdp. I have two major worries. First, if Milei approaches fiscal success, the opposing parties […]
Will Milei succeed in Argentina?
Quotation of the Day…
21 Jan 2024 Leave a comment
in labour economics, Milton Friedman, unions
Tweet… is from page 124 of Milton and Rose Friedman’s essential 1962 volume, Capitalism and Freedom: If unions raise wage rates in a particular occupation or industry, they necessarily make the amount of employment available in that occupation or industry less than it otherwise would be – just as any higher price cuts down the…
Quotation of the Day…
MICHAEL BASSETT: TV ONE’S BEAT-UP ON THE TREATY AND THE KING’S HUI
21 Jan 2024 Leave a comment
in discrimination, economic history, income redistribution, law and economics, liberalism, Marxist economics, politics - New Zealand, property rights, Public Choice, rentseeking Tags: constitutional law
Last Friday night, TV One’s lead item on the 6pm news was a story by reporter Te Aniwa Hurihanganui. She had scored a leaked piece of advice not yet considered by Cabinet that was intended to warn ministers in the new government that they would run into trouble with Maori if they backed David Seymour’s…
MICHAEL BASSETT: TV ONE’S BEAT-UP ON THE TREATY AND THE KING’S HUI
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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