Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change: William Nordhaus
08 Oct 2021 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, energy economics, environmental economics, financial economics, global warming Tags: carbon tax, carbon trading
Innovation and Growth Cycles
08 Oct 2021 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, business cycles, economic growth, economic history, financial economics, industrial organisation, labour economics, labour supply, macroeconomics, monetary economics, survivor principle, unemployment Tags: creative destruction, real business cycles
How Humans Lost Their Fur
08 Oct 2021 Leave a comment
in economics of education, economics of media and culture
Essential Coase: The Lighthouse in Economics
08 Oct 2021 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, comparative institutional analysis, economic history, economics of bureaucracy, history of economic thought, law and economics, property rights, Public Choice, Ronald Coase
Back For Christmas? – The Illusion Of A Short War I THE GREAT WAR – Week 11
08 Oct 2021 Leave a comment
in defence economics, war and peace Tags: World War I
Monopsony and immigration
07 Oct 2021 Leave a comment
in labour economics, labour supply Tags: economics of immigration, monopsony
ROCKTOBER-Paradise by the Dashboard light.
07 Oct 2021 Leave a comment
The career of Michael Lee Aday aka Meat Loaf, has been a turbulent one, to used an understatement. It went from filling huge stadiums with adore fans, to barely getting people to see him perform in small community halls in Ireland, and back to stadiums.
His most iconic song though has to be “Paradise by the Dashboard light” written by Jim Steinman. It was released in 1977 and was taken from the album “Bat out of Hell”
“Paradise by the Dashboard Light” is one of the longest songs to be released uncut on one side of a 45 RPM record. The only difference between the single and album versions is that the single version fades out almost immediately after the final line is sung. Jim Steinman had stated that he wanted to write “the ultimate car/sex song in which everything goes horribly wrong in the end.” The album version of…
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In The Footsteps of Mr Kurz by Michela Wrong (2000)
07 Oct 2021 Leave a comment
Comparing Michela Wrong and David van Reybrouck
David van Reybrouck’s account of Congo’s modern history is basically an orthodox chronological account and political analysis interspersed with interviews with the many veterans and eye witnesses he has tracked down and spoken with at length.
Wrong’s account feels completely different, less chronological or, indeed, logical, more thematic. Instead of historical analysis, she brilliantly conveys what it felt like to live in Zaire under Mobutu as she sets about systematically exploring and describing different aspects of Zaire society and culture. Her vividness of approach is demonstrated by the way the book opens with the fall of Mobutu in 1997, going light on political analysis and strong on vivid descriptions of what it felt like to live in a crumbling, corrupt third world country.
Chapter one dwells on the role played in so many African states by key international hotels in their capitals, in…
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There is still a war on, you know
07 Oct 2021 Leave a comment
in defence economics, economics of crime, International law, law and economics, laws of war, war and peace Tags: Afghanistan, war against terror
How do officials think about the costs of expropriation?
07 Oct 2021 Leave a comment
The government has introduced legislation which will allow the Minister of Health and the Director General to take over private companies doing COVID testing (further description is here). The likely target of this change is Rako, which has sought a commercial negotiation with the government for the last year. The amendment, which is before the Select Committee, will give the government the option of taking Rako’s property and unilaterally determine compensation.
So, what do officials see as the costs of de facto nationalisation of COVID testing?
Here is what the Ministry of Health has to say in its Fact Sheet 5: Regulating COVID-19 laboratory testing and managing testing supplies and capacity:
The proposed change will not have any direct impacts. Orders made under the new provision may impose obligations or restrictions on testing laboratories to ensure quality of testing, integration of test results with the public testing repository…
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John Gibson – Hard but not early – the real cost of NZ’s lockdown
07 Oct 2021 Leave a comment
in applied welfare economics, health economics, politics - New Zealand Tags: economics of pandemics, offsetting behaviour, The fatal conceit, unintended consequences
History of debt limits – Tom Sargent
07 Oct 2021 Leave a comment
in budget deficits, business cycles, economic history, Euro crisis, financial economics, fiscal policy, history of economic thought, macroeconomics, monetary economics Tags: monetary policy
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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