For a country riddled with corruption, Indians report the surprising amount of confidence in their courts despite the corruption in those courts as well.
Source: Index of Economic Freedom.
@paul1kirby why does @OECD claim that Indians trust their judicial system so much?
07 Feb 2016 Leave a comment
in development economics, economics of regulation, growth disasters, law and economics, property rights Tags: bribery and corruption, capitalism and freedom, doing business, economics of corruption, Index of Economic Freedom, India, rule of law
@OwenJones84 @K_Niemietz Venezuelan, Chilean and Chinese index of economic freedom rankings 2016
06 Feb 2016 Leave a comment
in development economics, economics of regulation, entrepreneurship, fiscal policy, growth disasters, growth miracles, industrial organisation, labour economics, law and economics, macroeconomics, monetary economics, property rights, public economics Tags: capitalism and freedom, Chile, China, The Great Escape, Venezuela
A bizarre Finnish amateur racing car practice for redistributing winning
06 Feb 2016 Leave a comment
in economics of media and culture, fiscal policy, income redistribution, labour economics, labour supply, law and economics, poverty and inequality, property rights, public economics, rentseeking Tags: basic income, car racing, Finland, guaranteed minimum income, negative income tax
Much more than a high minimum wage – Puerto Rican, Mexican and U.S. Doing Business rankings 2015
05 Feb 2016 Leave a comment
in economics of religion, entrepreneurship, industrial organisation, law and economics, politics - USA, property rights Tags: doing business, Mexico, Puerto Rico
Having a high minimum wage is the least of the problems that the US territory of Porto Rico has when you consider reasons from its recent sovereign default. It owes about US$70 billion. It is a terrible place to do do business – worse than Mexico! Mexicans find it easier to export to the USA!
@OwenJones84 @K_Niemietz Ease of Doing Business in Latin America and the Caribbean – World Bank rankings
05 Feb 2016 Leave a comment
in development economics, economics of regulation, growth disasters, growth miracles, law and economics, property rights Tags: doing business, Venezuela
Source: World Bank Doing Business Database 2015.
@GreenpeaceUK thinks these wind turbines are a pretty sight
05 Feb 2016 Leave a comment
in energy economics, environmental economics, global warming, law and economics, property rights Tags: Big Wind, land use conflicts, visual pollution, wind power
The Return Of Australian Indigenous Land to 2013
26 Jan 2016 Leave a comment
in economic history, law and economics, property rights
David Friedman explains incentive incompatibility and comparative institutional analysis
18 Jan 2016 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, comparative institutional analysis, constitutional political economy, David Friedman, industrial organisation, law and economics, property rights Tags: incentive incompatibility, public goods
Carbon trading, fisheries quotas & deregulatory takings @cjsbishop @franks_lawyer
16 Jan 2016 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, energy economics, environmental economics, law and economics, property rights, Public Choice
Like carbon trading permits, an individual transferable quota (ITQ) to a fish catch can be construed as a exclusive, perpetual right. An individual transferable quota (ITQ) is an allocated privilege to land a specified portion of the annual fish catch.
Fisheries regulators consider ITQ quota shares not to be property, but to convey a privilege to catch an amount of fish or shellfish in a given year that can be renewed or revoked. ITQs are quota shares may represent a different resource quantity every year as the total allocated catch may vary from year to year. Nonetheless, the ability to sell or lease ITQ shares implies a more enduring, if not permanent, fishing access privilege.
No one has yet successfully argued that the ability to adjust and modify an ITQ program constitutes grounds for a regulatory taking in the USA.
The Australian courts have found that fishing entitlements, although similar in terms of the privileges conferred, are not the common law property right of profit á prendre. They are a statutory entitlement. A profit á prendre is a right to take part of the soil, minerals, natural produce including fish and wild animals. The person does not own the thing gathered whilst it is on the land, but has a right to gather it.
Compensation for modification and extinguishment of these rights depends on whether there is compensation payable under applicable legislation or on whether the plaintiffs can rely on constitutional guarantees of acquisition of property on just terms. The courts have clearly indicated that fishing entitlements are rights created by government as means of regulating the fishing industry and are thus governed by the legislation that created them.
By annulling that legislation, the entitlement no longer exists. By modifying the legislation, the entitlement is redefined. Statutory licences are ‘inherently susceptible’ to modification or extinguishment.
See ‘ITQs and Property Rights A review of Australian case law’ by Sevaly Sen, Barry Kaufmann and Gerry Geen Fisheries Economics, Research and Management Pty. Ltd. Australia
Deregulatory takings is another name for reducing the size of carbon trading permits and individually transferable fisheries quotas. There is a large literature on deregulatory takings and regulatory contracts in the USA.
In electric power generation deregulation, ‘Stranded Costs’ represents the existing investments in infrastructure for the incumbent utility which may become redundant in a competitive environment. Stranded costs can also be defined as any investment that will be less valuable under competition than under regulation. Stranded costs are another name for the transitional gains trap.
Given there are no constitutional protections against regulatory takings, it would be ironic that there were constitutional protections against deregulatory takings.
It would be even more ironic that the viability of carbon trading is undermined by the unwillingness of the environmental movement to accept investor certainty over individually tradable quotas to a fishery catch. High-handed reductions of fisheries quotas set the stage for the same in carbon trading. Given that sovereign risk, the business community and investors will be less willing to support the regime been established in the first place.
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
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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