PRESCOTT on quality adjusted medical price indexes
17 Sep 2025 Leave a comment
in economic growth, economic history, Edward Prescott, health economics, macroeconomics
Predistribution, Not Redistribution, in the Nordic Countries
15 Sep 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economic growth, economics of education, fiscal policy, income redistribution, labour economics, labour supply, macroeconomics, poverty and inequality, Public Choice, public economics, rentseeking Tags: Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden
Maybe it’s just because I live in Minnesota, a state where the differences between immigrants from Sweden, Norway, and Finland are still apparent in the names of towns and the surnames of people. But when I run into people who would prefer that the US distribution of income be more equal, they often point to…
Predistribution, Not Redistribution, in the Nordic Countries
Abundance 2025 – Preview
09 Sep 2025 Leave a comment
in economic growth, macroeconomics, politics - USA
Five questions I’ll be bringing to the conference this week
Abundance 2025 – Preview
Do rising house prices damage economic growth?
01 Sep 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economic growth, economics of bureaucracy, economics of regulation, macroeconomics, politics - New Zealand, Public Choice, regulation, rentseeking, urban economics Tags: housing affordability
Don Brash writes – In recent years, when addressing Rotary and other audiences, I often talk about the five big challenges facing New Zealand – persistently slow growth in productivity, and therefore in income levels; ridiculously unaffordable house prices; the increasing division of our society into those with a Maori ancestor and those without; the […]
Do rising house prices damage economic growth?
The Most Important Election(s) of 2025
28 Aug 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, Austrian economics, development economics, economic growth, economics of regulation, fiscal policy, growth disasters, labour economics, labour supply, law and economics, liberalism, libertarianism, macroeconomics, monetary economics, Public Choice, unemployment Tags: Argentina
Javier Milei has generated amazingly good results in just 20 months. But more reform is needed to undo the damage of 80 years of Peronism, which is why I explain that Argentina’s mid-term elections will be very important. Milei wants to turn Argentina into the world’s freest economy. That won’t be possible so long as […]
The Most Important Election(s) of 2025
If the election was scheduled for next week, Hipkins could win – but (luckily for Luxon) it’s next year
26 Aug 2025 Leave a comment
in economic growth, inflation targeting, macroeconomics, monetary economics, politics - New Zealand, Public Choice Tags: 2026 general election
Chris Trotter writes – “There is a tide in the affairs of men, which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune”. Those words, taken from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, are often quoted in the context of politicians facing the hard choice between doing it now, or not doing it at all.
If the election was scheduled for next week, Hipkins could win – but (luckily for Luxon) it’s next year
Reading Grant Robertson
25 Aug 2025 Leave a comment
in budget deficits, business cycles, economic growth, economic history, economics of bureaucracy, fiscal policy, inflation targeting, macroeconomics, monetary economics, politics - New Zealand, Public Choice Tags: economics of pandemics, monetary policy
I got home from Papua New Guinea at 1:30 on Saturday morning and by 3:30 yesterday afternoon I’d finished Grant Robertson’s new book, Anything Could Happen, and in between I’d been to two film festival movies, a 60th birthday party, and church. It is that sort of book, a pretty easy read. In some respects, […]
Reading Grant Robertson
Why is Europe Falling Behind?
23 Aug 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economic growth, labour economics, labour supply, macroeconomics Tags: European Union
WSJ: Europe is Losing Europeans live longer, have more leisure time and less income inequality, and often live in stunning cities and towns built over the centuries. But increasingly, Americans enjoy a higher standard of living. They have over 50% more living space on average per person. More than four in five Americans have air…
Why is Europe Falling Behind?
The Greens’ weekend gift to the government
19 Aug 2025 Leave a comment
in economic growth, entrepreneurship, fiscal policy, income redistribution, labour economics, labour supply, macroeconomics, Marxist economics, politics - New Zealand, poverty and inequality, Public Choice, public economics Tags: taxation and entrepreneurship, wealth tax
Roger Partridge writes – The Greens’ coronation of Chlöe Swarbrick at last weekend’s AGM delivered a manifesto for economic transformation that would make Soviet economists nostalgic for their glory days.
The Greens’ weekend gift to the government
Milei’s Achievements…and Challenges
17 Aug 2025 1 Comment
in development economics, economic growth, economics of bureaucracy, economics of regulation, fiscal policy, growth disasters, income redistribution, industrial organisation, labour economics, law and economics, liberalism, libertarianism, macroeconomics, Marxist economics, monetary economics, property rights, Public Choice, public economics, rentseeking, unemployment Tags: Argentina
I’m back in Argentina, the South American country with the world’s best leader. What Javier Milei has accomplished is amazing. And the economic effects have been wonderful. One of my meetings earlier this week was with Marcelo Elizondo, the head of the International Chamber of Commerce for Argentina. He shared a presentation with me that […]
Milei’s Achievements…and Challenges
Partisan Bias in Professional Macroeconomic Forecasts
27 Jul 2025 Leave a comment
in business cycles, economic growth, macroeconomics, politics - USA Tags: forecasting errors
Here is a recent paper by Benjamin S. Kay, Aeimit Lakdawala, and Jane Ryngaert: Using a novel dataset linking professional forecasters in the Wall Street Journal Economic Forecasting Survey to their political affiliations, we document a partisan bias in GDP growth forecasts. Republican-affiliated forecasters project 0.3-0.4 percentage points higher growth when Republicans hold the presidency, […]
Partisan Bias in Professional Macroeconomic Forecasts
The Milei Miracle, Part II
23 Jul 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, budget deficits, comparative institutional analysis, constitutional political economy, development economics, economic growth, fiscal policy, growth disasters, growth miracles, law and economics, liberalism, libertarianism, macroeconomics, property rights Tags: Argentina
I almost feel sorry for the 108 leftist economists who predicted back in 2023 that Argentina would suffer if Javier Milei won the presidential election. Not only were they disappointed when he enjoyed a landslide victory, but the subsequent events in Argentina have shown that they were wildly wrong (all of which is discussed in […]
The Milei Miracle, Part II
The Cross of Gold: Brazilian Treasure and the Decline of Portugal (due to the resource curse)
18 Jul 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, comparative institutional analysis, constitutional political economy, development economics, economic growth, economic history, growth disasters, international economics, law and economics, macroeconomics, property rights, Public Choice, rentseeking, resource economics Tags: Portugal, resources curse
By Davis Kedrosky and Nuno Palma. Published in The Journal of Economic History.In the book The Economics of Macro Issues which I used as a supplemental text, they mention that Russia has many resources but its per capita income is less than that of Luxembourg which has few resources. The book suggests that the economic…
The Cross of Gold: Brazilian Treasure and the Decline of Portugal (due to the resource curse)
The Weird and Lovely Surge of US Productivity Growth
04 Jul 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, econometerics, economic growth, economic history, industrial organisation, labour economics, labour supply, macroeconomics, politics - USA
In the long run, a rising standard of living is always and everywhere based on productivity growth. Thus, Austan Goolsbee notedin a keynote address at the “Summit” conference held at the Stanford Institute of Economic Policy Research (SIEPR) in February (“Remarks on Productivity Growth and Monetary Policy,” February 28, 2025): As Goolsbee notes, annual productivity…
The Weird and Lovely Surge of US Productivity Growth
Greg Mankiw on Modern Monetary Theory
30 Jun 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, budget deficits, business cycles, economic growth, economics of education, fiscal policy, macroeconomics, monetary economics Tags: cranks, monetary policy
Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) had a real moment in the spotlight in the late 2010s, with political support in the US from Presidential hopefuls Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. However, mainstream economists mostly didn’t understand it, or ridiculed it, or both. I mostly ignored the detail of it, only picking up what I knew about it from…
Greg Mankiw on Modern Monetary Theory
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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