Celebrating humanity's flourishing through the spread of capitalism and the rule of law
27 Nov 2015 Leave a comment
in economic history, job search and matching, labour economics, unemployment
The Australian and New Zealand equilibrium unemployment rates are much more obedient. They neatly track actual unemployment with few exceptions for recessions. So much so is this close tracking of the actual unemployment rate by the equilibrium unemployment rate that you wonder what extra the latter concept adds.
Source: OECD Stat and OECD Economic Outlook November 2015.
27 Nov 2015 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, economic growth, labour economics, politics - USA, poverty and inequality, welfare reform Tags: 2016 presidential election, Leftover Left, Twitter left
26 Nov 2015 1 Comment
in economic history, job search and matching, unemployment
Unlike the USA, the OECD’s host country’s actual and equilibrium unemployment rates track each other rather too closely for comfort. In contrast, Italian unemployment hardly ever catches up with the Italian equilibrium unemployment rate. In common with the US equilibrium unemployment rate, the Italian equilibrium unemployment rate was rather stable for quite some time.
Source: OECD Stat and OECD Economic Outlook November 2015
26 Nov 2015 2 Comments
in economic history, job search and matching, labour economics, unemployment
I can’t think of a charitable explanation of why the equilibrium unemployment rate is so stable in the USA and yet tracks actual unemployment with a bit of a lag in the UK. There is a large literature showing that the equilibrium unemployment rate in the USA has gone up and down quite significantly if only for demographic reasons related to the baby boomers passing through the workforce in large numbers in the 70s.
Source: OECD Stat and OECD Economic Outlook November 2015.
26 Nov 2015 1 Comment
in budget deficits, defence economics, economics of education, fiscal policy, health economics, labour supply Tags: ageing society, British economy, British politics, demographic crisis
23 Nov 2015 Leave a comment
in economic history, fiscal policy, macroeconomics Tags: sovereign debt, sovereign debt crises, sovereign defaults
21 Nov 2015 2 Comments
in currency unions, economic growth, economic history, Euro crisis, fiscal policy, macroeconomics, politics - USA Tags: British disease, British economy, Eurosclerosis, France, sick man of Europe, Sweden, Swedosclerosis, Twitter left
The Washington Centre for Equitable Growth have joined the Wall Street Journal in falling for that dodgy OECD hypothesis about rising inequality holding back economic growth.
The chart below shows stark differences between egalitarian Sweden and France, and the more unequal UK since 1970 in departures from a trend growth rate of 1.9% in real GDP per working age person, PPP.
Source: Computed from OECD Stat Extract and The Conference Board. 2015. The Conference Board Total Economy Database™, May 2015, http://www.conference-board.org/data/economydatabase/
In the above chart, a flat line is growth at the same rate as the USA for the 20th century, which was 1.9% for GDP per working age person on a purchasing power parity basis. The USA’s growth rate is taken as the trend rate of growth of the global technological frontier. A falling line in the above chart is growth in real GDP per working age person, PPP, at below this trend rate of 1.9%; a rising line is above trend rate growth for that year.
Britain did very well, both under the neoliberal horrors of Thatcherism and the betrayals by Tony Blair of a true Labour Party platform. The UK grew at above the trend annual growth to 1.9% for most of the period from the early 1980s to 2007.
Neither France or Sweden, despite their egalitarian economies, kept up with the US growth rate since 1970. Under the OECD’s hypothesis, if France and Sweden had been more unequal, their trend growth rates would have been even more appalling since 1970.
17 Nov 2015 Leave a comment
in economic growth, economic history, global financial crisis (GFC), labour economics, macroeconomics Tags: British economy, British history
16 Nov 2015 Leave a comment
in currency unions, economic history, economics of regulation, Euro crisis, macroeconomics, monetary economics Tags: bank run, banking crises, banking panics, economics of banking, financial crises
15 Nov 2015 1 Comment
in applied welfare economics, economic growth, economic history, economics of regulation, fiscal policy, labour economics, politics - New Zealand Tags: Australia, John Quiggin, lost decades
Leading Australian academic economist John Quiggin has just published an article arguing that New Zealand should not be a policy role model for anything. To quote Quiggin:
For most of the twentieth century, the New Zealand and Australian economies performed almost identically. New Zealand took a somewhat larger hit when Britain entered the European Common Market in the 1970s, but that impact has long since washed out. The real divergence came in the 1980s. Since then, New Zealand’s income per person has fallen 35 per cent behind Australia’s
He used Reserve Bank of New Zealand data going back to 1990, which is common starting point for most Reserve Bank data.
Source: John Quiggin “How New Zealand fell further behind”. Inside Story, 11 November 2015.
If he had taken that chart back to the 1970s and earlier using the Conference Board Total Database, Quiggin would have found that New Zealand economy diverged from Australia in the 1970s, not in the 1980s. His data from the Reserve Bank of New Zealand started at the low point in 1990 – at the end of that divergence that started in 1974. The New Zealand economy was depressed between 1974 and 1992. I label this Great Depression in New Zealand as New Zealand’s Lost Decades.
Source: Computed from OECD Stat Extract and The Conference Board. 2015. The Conference Board Total Economy Database™, May 2015, http://www.conference-board.org/data/economydatabase/
Real GDP PPP per working age New Zealander fell rapidly after 1974 (a 34% drop against trend) when that economy was a heavily regulated, highly taxed economy. This heavily regulated, highly taxed, economically stagnant New Zealand is the good old days in the eyes of the Twitter Left.
Source: Computed from OECD Stat Extract and The Conference Board. 2015. The Conference Board Total Economy Database™, May 2015, http://www.conference-board.org/data/economydatabase/
In the chart above, the base is 1974 which equals 100. A flat-line means annual growth equal to the trend rate of growth in the 20th century for the USA. A falling line means below trend growth; a rising line means above trend rate economic growth per working age Australian or New Zealander.
With the election of a National Party government in 1990 and a massive fiscal consolidation, New Zealand growth rate returned to the previous trend rate of 1.9% in 1992. Ruth Richardson’s horror budget of 1991 was so bad that the what became the Twitter Left called it the “Mother of All Budgets“.
What followed this massive fiscal consolidation where welfare benefits for cut severely was an economic boom that lasted until the GFC.
Source: Income Gap | New Zealand Council of Trade Unions – Te Kauae Kaimahi.
As shown in the chart conveniently compiled by the New Zealand Council of Trade Union, there was 20 years of real wage stagnation until the passage of the Employment Contracts Act in 1991.
Source: Income Gap | New Zealand Council of Trade Unions – Te Kauae Kaimahi with annotations.
What followed the passage of that Act was sustained real wages growth for the first time in two decades and the end of growing inequality under the previously highly taxed, heavy regulated economy that was good old days New Zealand if the Twitter Left is to be believed.
To do this, to paint pre-1984 New Zealand, pre-neoliberal New Zealand as a fairly egalitarian paradise, Max Rashbrooke is an example of that is had to ignore two thirds of the population and the inequalities they suffered:
“New Zealand up until the 1980s was fairly egalitarian, apart from Maori and women, our increasing income gap started in the late 1980s and early 1990s,” says Rashbrooke. “These young club members are the first generation to grow up in a New Zealand really starkly divided by income.”
Racism and patriarchy can sit comfortably with a fairly egalitarian society if you are to believe the vision of the Twitter Left as to their good old days. John Quiggin refers to the period in Australia known as the Menzies Era as part of his golden age of the mixed economy. The Menzies Era was most of the 23 years of uninterrupted conservative party rule between 1949 and 1972. The actual Menzies Era was the period up to 1966 when Liberal Party Prime Minister Sir Robert Menzies retired
The reforms of the 1980s known as Rogernomics stopped the long-term stagnation in real wages that started in about 1974. The reforms of the early 1990s under a National Party government including a massive fiscal consolidation and the passing of the Employment Contracts Act was followed by the resumption of sustained growth in real wages with little interruption since.
New work by Chris Ball and John Creedy shows substantial *declines* in NZ inequality.
initiativeblog.com/2015/06/24/ine… http://t.co/f94fw4Bhae—
Eric Crampton (@EricCrampton) June 24, 2015
This boom after two decades of minimal real economic growth per working age New Zealander benefited everyone. The unemployment rate fell to a record low of 3.5% about 2005. Maori unemployment was at a 20-year low of 8% in 2008. Maori labour force participation rates increased from 45% in the late 1980s to about 62% by the eve of the Global Financial Crisis.
The increase in percentage terms of Maori and Pasifika real household income is much larger than for Pakeha since the economic reforms of the 1980s and 1990s. As Bryan Perry (2015, p. 67) explains when commenting on table D6 sourced by Closer Together Whakatata Mai:
From a longer-term perspective, all groups showed a strong rise from the low point in the mid 1990s through to 2010. In real terms, overall median household income rose 47% from 1994 to 2010: for Maori, the rise was even stronger at 68%, and for Pacific, 77%. These findings for longer- term trends are robust, even though some year on year changes may be less certain. For 2004 to 2010, the respective growth figures were 21%, 31% and 14%.
13 Nov 2015 Leave a comment
in economic history, Euro crisis, labour economics, labour supply, macroeconomics, politics - USA, public economics Tags: employment law, Eurosclerosis, France, Germany, growth of government, labour market regulation, size of government, taxation and labour supply
Source: Linda Regber.
12 Nov 2015 Leave a comment
in job search and matching, labour economics, labour supply, personnel economics, politics - New Zealand, unemployment, welfare reform
I stayed on after my Parliamentary testimony this morning to listen to others. A dozen or more made submissions arguing for more regulation – usually asking that zero hours contracts be outlawed.
I was the only submitter so far who argued against any regulation of zero hours contracts. I was thanked for putting a different perspective at the end of my submission. All members of the committee were very polite and listen to what I had to say.
Inadvertently, of course, Iain Lees-Galloway and Sue Moroney of the Labour Party and several members of the Public Service Association unearthed telling points against the case for regulation of zero hours contracts in the course of the morning in both the submissions and through the Q&A.
The first member of the Public Service Association to present information against zero hours contracts was a home support worker who was a union organiser.
This Public Service Association union organiser said, among many points in a kitchen sink submission, that zero hour contracts would deter people from entering her industry. That’s my point about zero hours contracts:
A second member of the Public Service Association talked about her daughter who was on a zero hours contract in her first job. After a seven-month spell of unemployment, her daughter worked as many shifts as possible to show she was a valued member of her team. Good for her. In low skilled jobs, what employers look for is someone who is friendly and reliable.
Part of that story was about the difficulties of her daughter with the correct payment of her unemployment benefit. Every Friday she has to telephone WINZ to forecast how many hours she expected to work in the following week so her unemployment benefit is correctly calculated for the following paid day.
From time to time, the submitter’s daughter was called in at the last minute for a shift on her zero hours contract at the weekend so that estimate of the previous day is incorrect and she is overpaid on her benefit.
This retention of unemployment benefit eligibility is a key point against the arguments raised by Iain Lee-Galloway about how workers and, in particular, the unemployed have no option but to accept zero hours contracts. Galloway was correct in making this the crux of the matter.
He can he kept stressing the inequality of bargaining power and a lack of options of job applicants when questioning me at the hearings this morning.
It was Iain Lees-Galloway who set up this bargaining power inequality as a crucial argument against zero hours contracts, not me. Zero hours contracts are said by the Labour Party and the unions to be a bad deal. It’s an offer job seekers cannot refuse, especially if they’re unemployed.
If beneficiaries do have options and they can refuse an offer of a zero hours contract, as 50% of British unemployment beneficiaries do, most arguments for the regulation or prohibition of zero hours contracts fall of the first hurdle.
The submitter’s daughter was still on an unemployment benefit despite taking a zero hours contract. She had options. She had a basic income, the unemployment benefit, so she was never left in the lurch if there was no shift that week. She never earned less than the unemployment benefit weekend and week out and often earned more.
The unemployment benefit allows beneficiaries to earn up to $200 a week after which benefit is withdrawn at 50 cents per dollar. As the beneficiary is still on the benefit, they have access to those all-important 2nd tier benefits ranging from accommodation allowances to special grants for unexpected urgent expenses.
Zero hours contracts allow the unemployed to make the benefit pay. Simon Chapple pointed out to me a few years ago that part-time work and benefit receipt can be an attractive long-term option for low skilled workers such as single mothers. The unemployment or single-parent beneficiary who works part-time has the certainty of the unemployment benefit plus a couple hundred dollars extra-week from their part-time job while retaining the second tier benefits that guard against unexpected expenses.
Sue Moroney then finished off the case against regulating zero hours contracts when questioning a submitter from the construction industry. The submitter was discussing the generosity of parental leave as well as zero hours contracts.
Sue Moroney pointed out that because of childcare responsibilities, the ability of that industry to attract women is greatly diminished if they offer zero hours contracts. She was pointing out a major cost of zero hours contracts to employers who offer them.
Sue Moroney highlighted the risk to employers of cutting themselves off from a major part of the job applicant pool – mothers of young children. That is a big cost unless employers offering zero hours contracts either pay a wage premium to keep access to that talent or offer these contracts to teenagers and adults, men and women, who circumstances dispose to working variable hours, sometimes working long hours and sometimes not working at all that week.
Zero hours contracts is an issue about job search and job matching. These contracts will benefit some employers and some employees. Other jobseekers will not sign such contracts. Still others will find that after signing a zero hours contract, that was not the best choice for them in retrospect. That form of on-the-job learning about competing job opportunities is common. Young people spend their first 10 to 15 years in the workforce job shopping. They move through half a dozen or more different jobs, employers and even industries before they find a good fit for them and stay on.
All in all, zero hours contracts empower the unemployed. Zero-hours contracts allow the unemployed to try out jobs while keeping their unemployment or single parent benefit. They don’t have to go completely off the benefit then risk a stand-down period of 6 to 12 weeks if they leave a regular job that is unsatisfactory.
Furthermore, the zero hours contracts give them an opportunity sometimes to earn a lot of money in a short period of time was still retaining their benefit eligibility. As another member of the Public Service Association mentioned when your wages balloon because of long hours one week, your benefit is wound back, but they are still on their benefit. They don’t have to reapply and risk of stand-down period
Zero hours contracts expand the options of jobseekers, especially the unemployed. Taking a zero hours contract gives the unemployed the option to test out a job without having to give up their unemployment benefit. They are empowering, not put upon as the Labour Party and the union members argued today.
10 Nov 2015 Leave a comment
in business cycles, economic history, economics of regulation, Euro crisis, job search and matching, labour economics, labour supply, macroeconomics Tags: British economy, employment law, equilibrium unemployment rate, Eurosclerosis, France, Germany, Italy, labour market reforms, Margaret Thatcher, Thatchernomics, The British Disease
Unlike the USA, the German, Italian, British and French equilibrium unemployment rates all show fluctuations that reflect changes in their underlying economic circumstances and labour market reforms. The case of the British, the rise of the British disease and Thatchernomics. The case of German, its equilibrium unemployment rate rose after German unification and then fell after the labour market reforms of 2002 to 2005.
Source: OECD Economic Outlook November 2015 Data extracted on 10 Nov 2015 07:07 UTC (GMT) from OECD.Stat.
10 Nov 2015 2 Comments
in business cycles, economic history, macroeconomics, politics - USA, unemployment
The equilibrium unemployment rate in the USA has been dead flat at a little under 6% as far back as the OECD Economic Outlook November 2015 can estimate. The Canadian and British equilibrium unemployment rates have gone up and down to the point of near doubling at times. Institutions cannot be so stable in the USA and so unstable Canada and Britain in terms of the incentives to post vacancies, for search for work in the same in different industries and occupations and revise asking wages. We’re talking about a 35 year stretch macroeconomic and labour market policy in the USA.
Source: OECD Economic Outlook November 2015 Data extracted on 10 Nov 2015 07:07 UTC (GMT) from OECD.Stat.
Furthermore, there is a large literature in the early 1970s and late 1990s arguing that the US equilibrium unemployment rate dropped as low as 4%.
Source: Robert Shimer, Why is the U.S. Unemployment Rate So Much Lower? (1999).
More correctly, for the early 1970s literature, the equilibrium unemployment rate had risen to 4% after being at an equilibrium rate of about 3%. Something doesn’t add up.
Source: Robert Shimer, Why is the U.S. Unemployment Rate So Much Lower? (1999).
This estimate of an unchanging US equilibrium unemployment rate doesn’t add up even more when you consider the discussions after the Great Recession about how the extensions to unemployment insurance from a time limit of 26 weeks to 99 weeks would increase the equilibrium unemployment rate. Something really doesn’t add up for the US equilibrium unemployment rate to be so stable and the British and Canadian equilibrium unemployment rates to be so volatile.
Source: Robert Barro: The Folly of Subsidizing Unemployment – WSJ.
08 Nov 2015 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economics of regulation, fiscal policy, politics - New Zealand, urban economics Tags: housing affordability, land supply, New Zealand Greens, New Zealand Labour Party, RMA
Labour yesterday announced an excellent policy on housing affordability. The reforms proposed by Labour stress increasing the supply of land and improvements to local government finances surrounding infrastructure investments for new housing:
Labour will free up density and height controls to allow more medium density housing and reform the use of urban growth boundaries so they don’t drive up section costs. This will curb land bankers and speculators.
Labour has struck at the heart of two major constraints on urban land supply New Zealand: restrictions on density and height of new developments, and much more importantly, the use of urban growth boundaries to drive up land prices. These proposed regulatory reforms could not be more welcome.
The other shoe of Labour’s housing affordability reform proposals is improving the incentives for local councils to support new housing developments:
The other new element is changing the way we fund infrastructure for new developments. Currently those costs are either subsidised by the ratepayer or passed by the developer onto the price tag of a new home. That makes houses much more expensive. It also means they are paid off through mortgages at expensive bank interest rates.
Our new policy will see infrastructure funded by local government bonds, paid off over the lifetime of the asset through a targeted rate on the properties in the new development. This will substantially reduce the cost of new housing.
The reforms proposed by Labour to local government financing will reduce the financial burden on existing ratepayers of the local government funded infrastructure necessary to support new land developments.
Source and notes: International House Price Database – Dallas Fed June 2015; nominal housing prices for each country is deflated by the personal consumption deflator for that country.
These Labour Party reforms are fantastic because the main party on the left-wing of New Zealand politics has faced up to restricted land supply as a key reason behind housing unaffordability. I wonder what the New Zealand Greens will think of these major new reforms.
Of course, nothing is perfect in the art of policy development. New Zealand Labour continue to want government to build 100,000 affordable houses and scapegoat foreigners for high housing prices.
A few more sensible economic and fiscal policy announcements such as those today by the New Zealand Labour Party and it will start looking like a credible alternative government.
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