124-year-old patent solves the ‘over versus under’ toilet paper roll debate
02 Jan 2016 Leave a comment
in entrepreneurship, law and economics, property rights Tags: creative destruction, intellectual property, patents and copyright
Tasmania was a pioneer in aboriginal land rights
05 Nov 2015 2 Comments
in economic history, law and economics, property rights
https://twitter.com/SadHappyAmazing/status/662133451286380545
The history of Australian aboriginals is sad enough without making up complete lies about their mistreatment. Their actual mistreatment was bad enough without making stuff up.
I sat on the Student Representative Council with a Tasmanian aboriginal. Stephen was one of the Maynards. Another prominent aboriginal family in Tasmania was the Mansells. This is despite the myth that the last Tasmanian aboriginal died in 1876. Michael Mansell was an excellent lawyer and a pragmatic advocate for his clients
In 1912, the Tasmanian Parliament passed a law recognising the land rights of Tasmanian aboriginals on Cape Barron Island. They were to be offered leases on land set aside for them. At the time they are itinerant mutton bird hunters.
That Act of Parliament created a reserve for them, listed them by name to ensure no doubt that they could apply for leases and prohibited the sale of alcohol to them to reduce alcoholism:
The Cape Barren Island Reserve Act 1912 provided that unless the residents of the Island constructed dwellings and fenced and cultivated land they would lose their right to occupy that land. It also stated that `in order to encourage the settlement of the half-castes in other parts of Tasmania outside the Reserve’ the Minister for Lands could authorise an applicant for a licence to occupy Crown land elsewhere in Tasmania… The subsequent Cape Barren Island Reserve Act 1945 was similar to the 1912 Act but it imposed more rigorous conditions on the lessees in return for a free land grant.
The 1912 Act also made an offer of 50 acres of land on the mainland of Tasmania to Cape Barren Island aboriginals. In common with the 1912 Act, The 1945 Act listed by name the Tasmanian aboriginals who were to benefit from the 99 year leases exactly where those leases were to remove any doubt or need for litigation:
The Tasmanian approach to aboriginal land rights stressed private property and the ability of each aboriginal to establish his own economic independence and make a living. Helen Hughes discussed the mainland solution which was communal rights, quoting a Palm Island resident:
The difference between a black man and a white man is this, when a white man dies his family gets his house. When a black man dies the government gets it.
The Tasmanian 1912 legislation provided for leases to be inherited by family members both through a will with specific provisions to deal with those who didn’t write a will to ensure the family still benefited:
@jamespeshaw nails the #TPPA policy trade-off @NZGreens
06 Oct 2015 1 Comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, comparative institutional analysis, economics of regulation, international economic law, international economics, International law, law and economics, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA, property rights Tags: conspiracy theories, David Friedman, foreign direct investment, free trade agreements, FTI, international investment law, Leftover Left, New Zealand Greens, preferential trading agreements, TPPA, Twitter left
About 1% more GDP but higher drug prices.
Source: No increased medicine costs under TPPA | Stuff.co.nz
.@MSF: Patients and treatment providers in developing countries the big losers of the #TPP bit.ly/TPPconcludes http://t.co/cbikANleyA—
MSF Access Campaign (@MSF_access) October 05, 2015
The next best arguments James Shaw made were xenophobia about foreign investment in land and some vast conspiracy theory regarding endangered dolphins.
When your next best argument is foreigners are coming to buy up all our land, you are playing from a weak populist hand. About half of million New Zealand born live in other countries.
About 80% of these live in Australia, the great majority as residents rather than as citizens. These New Zealanders living in Australia and elsewhere need protection under international agreements to ensure they are not the victim of populist outbreaks against the sale of land to foreigners.
Source: Statistics New Zealand.
In addition, if a foreigner wants to pay over the odds for my house I am glad to separate a fool from his money.
Source: Statistics New Zealand.
New Zealand has a strong interest in protecting the rights of its own expatriates as well as New Zealand foreign investors to buy land in other countries. As David Friedman explains:
Much more commonly, [economic imperialism] is used by Marxists to describe–and attack–foreign investment in “developing” (i.e., poor) nations. The implication of the term is that such investment is only a subtler equivalent of military imperialism–a way by which capitalists in rich and powerful countries control and exploit the inhabitants of poor and weak countries.
There is one interesting feature of such “economic imperialism” that seems to have escaped the notice of most of those who use the term. Developing countries are generally labour rich and capital poor; developed countries are, relatively, capital rich and labour poor. One result is that in developing countries, the return on labour is low and the return on capital is high–wages are low and profits high. That is why they are attractive to foreign investors.
To the extent that foreign investment occurs, it raises the amount of capital in the country, driving wages up and profits down. The effect is exactly analogous to the effect of free migration. If people move from labour-rich countries to labour-poor ones, they drive wages down and rents and profits up in the countries they go to, while having the opposite effect in the countries they come from.
If capital moves from capital-rich countries to capital-poor ones, it drives profits down and wages up in the countries it goes to and has the opposite effect in the countries it comes from. The people who attack “economic imperialism” generally regard themselves as champions of the poor and oppressed.
To the extent that they succeed in preventing foreign investment in poor countries, they are benefiting the capitalists of those countries by holding up profits and injuring the workers by holding down wages. It would be interesting to know how much of the clamour against foreign investment in such countries is due to Marxist ideologues who do not understand this and how much is financed by local capitalists who do.
Most common surnames in Europe
04 Oct 2015 Leave a comment
in economics of love and marriage, law and economics, property rights Tags: Europe, family name, surnames
Map of the most common surnames in Europe, 2011. http://t.co/GiYX5p4nWI—
Amazing Maps (@amazinmaps) September 13, 2015
Drug Price Controls End Up Costing Patients Their Lives
24 Sep 2015 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, comparative institutional analysis, economics of regulation, entrepreneurship, health economics, industrial organisation, law and economics, politics - USA, property rights, survivor principle Tags: creative destruction, endogenous growth theory, innovation, intellectual property rights, patents and copyrights, pharmaceutical innovation, price controls
Our research shows that when prices fall, innovation falls even more. Patients would see their lives cut short by delayed or absent drugs.
Source: Drug Price Controls End Up Costing Patients Their Health – NYTimes.com
…cutting prices by 40 to 50 percent in the United States will lead to between 30 and 60 percent fewer R and D projects being undertaken in the early stage of developing a new drug. Relatively modest price changes, such as 5 or 10 percent, are estimated to have relatively little impact on the incentives for product development – perhaps a negative 5 percent.
Source: The Effect of Price Controls on Pharmaceutical Research
Many conservationists are against effective rhino conservation
23 Sep 2015 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, development economics, entrepreneurship, environmental economics, growth disasters, growth miracles, law and economics, property rights Tags: Africa, agricultural economics, do gooders, economics of conservation, economics of endangered species, endangered species, expressive voting, Leftover Left, Twitter left, unintended consequences
https://twitter.com/ConversationUK/status/646227223716872197/photo/1
https://twitter.com/dlAfrican/status/646215227076292608
Capturing the economic value of wildlife for the benefit of wildlife. New in PERC Reports: bit.ly/1JHerwj http://t.co/yijFIChPDo—
PERC (@PERCtweets) September 13, 2015
How private ownership and trophy hunting saved the southern white rhino: bit.ly/1HhZy55 #WorldRhinoDay http://t.co/s4PudPwrrI—
PERC (@PERCtweets) September 22, 2015
Socialism is destroying the Amazon basin
19 Sep 2015 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, property rights, resource economics Tags: Amazon basin, deforestation, privatisation, public ownership
Creative destruction in taxi medallion sales
05 Sep 2015 Leave a comment
in economic history, economics of regulation, entrepreneurship, politics - USA, property rights, Public Choice, rentseeking Tags: taxi regulation, Uber
How frequent are simultaneous financial crises in one country?
04 Sep 2015 Leave a comment
in business cycles, currency unions, development economics, economic growth, economic history, Euro crisis, financial economics, global financial crisis (GFC), great depression, great recession, growth disasters, growth miracles, law and economics, macroeconomics, monetary economics, property rights Tags: bank runs, banking crises, banking panics, currency crises, current account crises, debt crises, pseudo financial crises, real financial crises, sovereign debt crises, sovereign default
The Case Against Patents By David Levine
02 Sep 2015 2 Comments
in law and economics, property rights Tags: copyright, David Levine, intellectual property law, patterns
Expulsions of Jews across Europe during the Medieval & Early Modern periods
28 Aug 2015 Leave a comment
in constitutional political economy, economic history, income redistribution, law and economics, property rights, Public Choice, rentseeking Tags: anti-semitism, European history
Expulsions of Jews across Europe during the Medieval & Early Modern periods. http://t.co/4HKGlNCjou—
History Facts 247 (@historyfacts247) July 08, 2015
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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