Source: Low Wage Economy | New Zealand Council of Trade Unions – Te Kauae Kaimahi, with extra annotations by this blogger.
Best defence of Employment Contracts Act is a @FairnessNZ graphic
24 Jul 2016 1 Comment
in economic growth, economic history, labour economics, macroeconomics, politics - New Zealand, unions Tags: economic reform, Employment Contracts Act, employment protection laws, employment regulation, Leftover Left, neoliberalism, pessimism bias
Tertiary attainment of 25-34 and 55-64 year-olds across the OECD
06 Jul 2016 Leave a comment
in economic growth, economics of education, human capital, labour economics, macroeconomics Tags: endogenous growth theory, graduate premium
Some countries have experienced large increases in the number of young people graduating from University when compared to their parents. Germany and the USA aside, all countries have experienced a noticeable increase in young adults with tertiary degrees.
Source: Education at a Glance 2015 – © OECD 01-01-2015.
If human capital is such a major driver of economic growth, should not these countries with large increases in tertiary educated workers be anticipating a growth spurt? The gaps in tertiary attainment across the OECD are much less than they used to be for young adults. Ireland’s burst in tertiary educated workers was after the Celtic Tiger years, not before or during.
Source: Education at a Glance 2015 – © OECD 01-01-2015.
35 Years of the World Economy
04 Jul 2016 Leave a comment
in development economics, economic growth, economic history, growth disasters, growth miracles, macroeconomics Tags: The Great Escape, The Great Fact
% difference between UK’s GDP per capita and EU founding members since 1950
25 Jun 2016 Leave a comment
in economic growth, economic history, international economics, International law
Eurosclerosis started in the 1970s while the British disease came to an end with the election of the Thatcher government so the chart paper is misleading.
Source: Britain’s EU membership: New insight from economic history | VOX, CEPR’s Policy Portal.
#GeorgeOrwell summarises the traditional @uklabour @nzlabour voter – sounds Blairite
07 Jun 2016 Leave a comment
in economic growth, labour economics, Marxist economics, politics - New Zealand
Source: The Road to Wigan Pier – Wikiquote.
Yes, the World is Getting Better. Here’s Why.
05 Jun 2016 Leave a comment
in applied welfare economics, development economics, economic growth, economic history Tags: pessimism bias, The Great Enrichment
General government net financial liabilities as % Portuguese, Italian, Greek, Spanish and Irish GDPs
03 Jun 2016 Leave a comment
in budget deficits, business cycles, economic growth, economic history, Euro crisis, financial economics, fiscal policy, global financial crisis (GFC), macroeconomics Tags: Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, public debt management, sovereign debt crises, sovereign defaults, Spain
I had borrowed a lot of money from scratch after 2007. Greece borrowed a lot of money of its own accord from 2010. Italy always owed a lot of money. Spanish do not know all that much money considering their dire financial circumstances.
Source: OECD Economic Outlook June 2016 Data extracted on 01 Jun 2016 12:57 UTC (GMT) from OECD.Stat
Equilibrium unemployment rate: USA, UK, France, Germany, Canada & Australia, 1985-2017
02 Jun 2016 Leave a comment
in business cycles, economic growth, economic history, global financial crisis (GFC), great recession, labour economics, labour supply, unemployment Tags: British economy, Canada, equilibrium unemployment rate, France, Germany, natural unemployment rate
I do admire the way in which the USA has been able to have a steadily falling equilibrium unemployment rate since 1984 through thick and thin. The Great Recession had no impact on the US equilibrium unemployment rate. Not only has the largest member been able to do this, the OECD host country (red squares) has had a pretty steady natural unemployment rate too all things considered.
Source: OECD Economic Outlook June 2016 Data extracted on 01 Jun 2016 12:40 UTC (GMT) from OECD.Stat
Gap in GDP per Australian, Canadian, French, German, Japanese, New Zealander and British hour worked with the USA
28 May 2016 Leave a comment
in economic growth, economic history, labour economics, labour supply, macroeconomics, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA, public economics Tags: Australia, British economy, Canada, Eurosclerosis, France, Germany, Japan, labour productivity, measurement error, taxation and labour supply
This data tells more of a story than I expected. Firstly, New Zealand has not been catching up with the USA. Japan stopped catching up with the USA in 1990. Canada has been drifting away from the USA for a good 30 years now in labour productivity.
Data extracted on 28 May 2016 05:15 UTC (GMT) from OECD.Stat from OECD Compendium of Productivity Indicators 2016 – en – OECD.
Australia has not been catching up with the USA much at all since 1970. It has maintained a pretty consistent gap with New Zealand despite all the talk of a resource boom in the Australia; you cannot spot it in this date are here.
Germany and France caught up pretty much with the USA by 1990. Oddly, Eurosclerosis applied from then on terms of growth in income per capita.
European labour productivity data is hard to assess because their high taxes lead to a smaller services sector where the services can be do-it-yourself. This pumps up European labour productivity because of smaller sectors with low productivity growth.
What Was the Industrial Revolution? – Robert E. Lucas
18 May 2016 Leave a comment
in economic growth, economic history, fiscal policy, Robert E. Lucas Tags: industrial revolution
The cost of regulation in the USA
27 Apr 2016 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, comparative institutional analysis, economic growth, economic history, economics of regulation, macroeconomics, politics - USA Tags: cost of economic regulation, endogenous growth theory
Thinking about The Great Leap Forward | Econbrowser
19 Apr 2016 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, comparative institutional analysis, development economics, economic growth, economic history, growth disasters, industrial organisation, law and economics, Marxist economics, Public Choice, rentseeking Tags: China, economics of planning, extreme poverty, famine, Great Leap Forward
Will the population bomb prevent the great stagnation?
16 Apr 2016 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, development economics, economic growth, industrial organisation, P.T. Bauer, population economics Tags: doomsday prophecies, endogenous growth theory, pessimism bias, population bomb
If only Paul Ehrlich had been right! Population explosion would have meant an explosion in people who could invent new technologies and populate in much larger markets to provide an incentive to invent new products.
Among Paul Ehrlich’s many analytical errors, he did not take into account that more people meant more inventors and more untapped markets.
Jones argued that in the very long run the only way to have further innovation is to have more people. If there are more people undertaking R&D and more people to populate the markets for those inventions, there will be further growth because the decreasing returns to knowledge creation will be overcome by having more R&D workers.
Jones attributes much of the growth in the 20th century to one-off effects that cannot be repeated such as putting more people into higher education:
… growth in educational attainment, developed-economy R&D intensity, and population are all likely to be slower in the future than in the past. These factors point to slower growth in US living standards.
Second, a counterbalancing factor is the rise of China, India, and other emerging economies, which likely implies rapid growth in world researchers for at least the next several decades.
Third, and more speculatively, the shape of the idea production function introduces a fundamental uncertainty into the future of growth. For example, the possibility that artificial intelligence will allow machines to replace workers to some extent could lead to higher growth in the future.
A larger population increases the rate of technological progress by increasing the number of geniuses and other creative people.The doomsday prophecies about the population bomb never took that into account. That is why they are wrong.
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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