CEO compensation at large firms is high, especially in comparison to average worker wages, sparking debates over income inequality. Critics argue that such pay packages are unfair and disproportionate to actual company performance. Proponents contend that high pay reflects productivity and is necessary to attract scarce top talent to large firms. Let’s go to the […]
Alwyn Poole writes – In New Zealand we have approximately 460 high schools. The gaps between the schools that produce the best results for students and those at the other end of the spectrum are enormous. In terms of the data for their leavers, the top 30 schools have an average of 87% of their […]
We know the old saying, “Never trust a politician”, and the Charter School debate is a good example of it. Charter Schools receive public funding, yet “are exempt from most statutory requirements of traditional public schools, including mandates around .. human capital management .. curriculum & instructional practices, and governance & management structures”. That’s a…
QUESTION TO CLAUDE 3: The EU and China lag behind the US in economic dynamism, measured by start-up activity, number of unicorns, age of unicorns (younger indicates more rapid innovation), and in productivity growth. Can you document this and tell me why?ANSWER: Here is the data to document the economic dynamism gap between the US,…
The Herald reports: KiwiRail’s seemingly endless requests for more money is damning. At one point, KiwiRail assured Robertson when he was the Finance Minister that the worst-case scenario would be an extra $300 million before requesting $1.2 billion a few months later. Not what most people regard as worst case. It’s no wonder Ministry of Transport officials […]
From former DOJ Economist Greg Werden: The governments case suggests that its exclusive deals with Apple and Mozilla to be the default search engine on their browsers “allowed Google to maintain its monopoly power [in “general search”] in violation of Section 2 of the Sherman Act.” However, the government’s brief also suggests that Google’s scale is very important,…
Several common measures — like employing a chief diversity officer, offering diversity training or having a diverse board — were not correlated with decreased discrimination in entry-level hiring, the researchers found. But one thing strongly predicted less discrimination: a centralized H.R. operation. The researchers recorded the voice mail messages that the fake applicants received. When a company’s […]
Hosking went after Radio New Zealand this morning and it was bad.The Mike Hosking Breakfast, 0600 till 0900 has three producer/support staff, Radio NZ Morning report has 16 production staff to cover the same five day time slot, yet the state run highly subsidised show falls way behind in ratings.. That 16 figure for production […]
Randomized Controlled Trials: Could you be any more scientific? The book I’m now writing, Unbeatable: The Brutally Honest Case for Free Markets, insists that the randomistas of the economics profession actually have a thinly-veiled political agenda. Namely: To get economists to humbly serve the demagogues that rule the world instead of bluntly challenging their unabated…
A few weeks ago I joined some contemporaries by abandoning the near sixty year habit of watching nightly TV news. I dropped it because I felt it did not give me real information that I had not acquired from other media sources, including some I pay for – The Economist, the NZ Herald, The Atlantic […]
Why Evolution is True is a blog written by Jerry Coyne, centered on evolution and biology but also dealing with diverse topics like politics, culture, and cats.
“We do not believe any group of men adequate enough or wise enough to operate without scrutiny or without criticism. We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it, that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. We know that in secrecy error undetected will flourish and subvert”. - J Robert Oppenheimer.
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