Is sociology really irrelevant in policy debates? @familyunequal does a better job with the #s blog.contexts.org/2015/01/25/soc… http://t.co/c4E25DTCmm—
(@SocImages) February 04, 2015
Is sociology really irrelevant in policy debates?
03 Sep 2015 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, comparative institutional analysis, constitutional political economy, economics of bureaucracy, economics of media and culture, income redistribution, labour economics, occupational choice, Public Choice, rentseeking Tags: compensating differentials, evidence-based policy, media bias, offsetting behaviour, public intellectuals, sociology, The fatal conceit, The pretence to knowledge, unintended consequences
US income distribution
29 Aug 2015 Leave a comment
in applied welfare economics, income redistribution, labour economics, politics - USA, poverty and inequality Tags: top 1%
Expulsions of Jews across Europe during the Medieval & Early Modern periods
28 Aug 2015 Leave a comment
in constitutional political economy, economic history, income redistribution, law and economics, property rights, Public Choice, rentseeking Tags: anti-semitism, European history
Expulsions of Jews across Europe during the Medieval & Early Modern periods. http://t.co/4HKGlNCjou—
History Facts 247 (@historyfacts247) July 08, 2015
Why some billionaires are bad for growth, and others aren’t
22 Aug 2015 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, economics of bureaucracy, economics of regulation, financial economics, income redistribution, industrial organisation, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA, Public Choice, rentseeking, survivor principle Tags: Australia, billionaires, Russia, top 0.1%, top 1%
…Bagchi and Svejnar carefully went through the lists of all the Forbes billionaires, and divided them into those who had acquired their wealth due to political connections, and those who had not. This is kind of a slippery slope — almost all billionaires have probably benefited from government connections at one time or another.
But the researchers used a very conservative standard for classifying people as politically connected, only assigning billionaires to this group when it was clear that their wealth was a product of government connections. Just benefiting from a government that was pro-business, like those in Singapore and Hong Kong, wasn’t enough.
Rather, the researchers were looking for a situation like Indonesia under Suharto, where political connections were usually needed to secure import licenses, or Russia in the mid-1990s, when some state employees made fortunes overnight as the state privatized assets.
…The negative effects of wealth inequality are largely being driven by politically connected wealth inequality. That seems to be the primary channel that drives this relationship…
a 3.72 percent increase in the level of wealth inequality would cost a country about half a percent of real GDP per capita growth. That’s a big impact, given that average GDP growth is in the neighbourhood of two percent per year
More evidence of mass kidnappings of #occupywallstreet activists
20 Aug 2015 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, human capital, income redistribution, labour economics, labour supply, politics - USA, poverty and inequality, Public Choice, rentseeking, sports economics Tags: expressive voting, Left-wing hypocrisy, Leftover Left, mass kidnappings, Occupy Wall Street, rational ignorance, rational irrationality, superstar wages, superstars, top 0.1%, top 1%
Ratio of Median Salary of Top 25 Highest Paid MLB Player to Avg. Worker Pay Increased from 100:1 to 700:1 Since 1988 http://t.co/5zLktBXS3D—
Mark J. Perry (@Mark_J_Perry) August 18, 2015
Henry Hazlett on why economics is so difficult
20 Aug 2015 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, comparative institutional analysis, constitutional political economy, economics of bureaucracy, income redistribution, Public Choice, rentseeking Tags: antiforeign bias, antimarket bias, bootleggers and baptists, green rent seeking, Henry Hazlett, makework bias, methodology of economics, philosophy of economics
Director’s Law in New Zealand?
14 Aug 2015 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, income redistribution, labour economics, politics - New Zealand, poverty and inequality, Public Choice, public economics Tags: child poverty, Director's Law, family poverty, family tax credits, welfare state
One group with negative net tax liability is low- to middle-income households with dependent children. For example, single-earner families with two children can earn up to around $60,000 pa before they pay any net tax.
Around half of all households with children receive more in welfare benefits and tax credits than they pay in income tax.
![clip_image002[6]](https://utopiayouarestandinginit.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/clip_image0026.jpg "clip_image002[6]")
@metiria @NZGreens 20,000 drop in children in hardship in 2014
13 Aug 2015 Leave a comment
in applied welfare economics, economic history, income redistribution, labour economics, politics - New Zealand, poverty and inequality, Public Choice, welfare reform Tags: child poverty, family poverty, family tax credits, Leftover Left, New Zealand Greens, Twitter left
The material hardship measure shows a falling child material hardship rate using a threshold equivalent to the ‘standard’ EU level, down from a peak of 21% immediately after the GFC to 14% in 2014.
Using the more severe threshold, there was a slight rise through the GFC to 10% and a small fall to 8%, the level it was at before the GFC.
Source: Bryan Perry, Household Incomes in New Zealand: trends in indicators of inequality and hardship 1982 to 2014 – Ministry of Social Development, Wellington (August 2015), p. 133.
Source: Bryan Perry, Household Incomes in New Zealand: trends in indicators of inequality and hardship 1982 to 2014 – Ministry of Social Development, Wellington (August 2015), p. 133.
@WJRosenbergCTU A brief history of rising equality in New Zealand
13 Aug 2015 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, economic history, economics of media and culture, income redistribution, labour economics, politics - New Zealand, poverty and inequality, Public Choice Tags: capitalism and freedom, Leftover Left, The Great Enrichment, The Great Fact, top 1%, Twitter left
Bill Rosenberg at the Council of Trade Unions was good enough to tweet a Treasury chart that shows next to no increases in inequality in New Zealand for at least 20 years.
A brief history of inequality-from Treasury paper Fig4. Note Employment Contracts Act,GST,income tax,benefit cuts,WFF http://t.co/y4w3cUsgjD—
Bill Rosenberg (@WJRosenbergCTU) June 27, 2015
Inequality in both market and disposable incomes has been stable for a good 20 years, as the above tweet shows, while inequality in consumption has been falling. To back this interpretation of mine up, coincidentally today Bryan Perry published his annual report on income and inequality under the banner of the Ministry of Social Development.
His report showed that there be no significant increase in New Zealand in at least 20 years.
How @equitablegrowth showed inequality helps growth when arguing inequality harms growth
10 Aug 2015 1 Comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, comparative institutional analysis, currency unions, economic growth, economic history, economics of regulation, entrepreneurship, Euro crisis, fiscal policy, global financial crisis (GFC), income redistribution, labour economics, labour supply, macroeconomics, Marxist economics, poverty and inequality, Public Choice, public economics, rentseeking Tags: British disease, entrepreneurial alertness, Eurosclerosis, France, German unification, Germany, growth of government, sick man of Europe, social insurance, Sweden, taxation and entrepreneurship, taxation and investment, taxation and labour supply, welfare state
The Washington Centre for Equitable Growth recently tweeted that inequality harms growth in the USA as compared to Sweden, France, Germany and the UK. It was relying on some dodgy OECD research.
.@OECD sees continued rise in growth-harming inequality, reports @PaulHannon29 on.wsj.com/1EZpq1S http://t.co/xt4heZysXT—
Equitable Growth (@equitablegrowth) May 21, 2015
The Washington Centre for Equitable Growth did not check their inequality ratios they tweeted against trends in economic growth and economic policy since 1970, which I have reproduced in figure 1. Germany is not included in figure 1 because German data on growth is thrown askew by German unification.
Figure 1: Real GDP per British, French and Swede aged 15-64, 2014 US$ (converted to 2014 price level with updated 2011 PPPs), 1.9 per cent detrended, 1970-2013
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/
Figure 1 shows that France has been in a long-term decline since the late 1970s despite the blessings of a more equal society than the USA as championed by the Washington Centre for Equitable Growth. In figure 1, a flat line is growth in real GDP per working age person, PPP, at the same rate as the USA for the 20th century, which was 1.9% per year. A falling line in figure 1 indicates growth of less than 1.9% while a rising line indicates growth in real GDP per working age person, PPP, in excess of 1.9%. In figure 1, France hardly ever grew at the trend rate of growth for the USA of 1.9% per year and was frequently well below that rate.
Sweden tells a slightly different story in figure 1 because of regime change in the early 1990s when Sweden adopted more liberal economic policies where taxes and government spending were reduced:
The rapid growth of the state in the late 1960s and 1970s led to a large decline in Sweden’s relative economic performance. In 1975, Sweden was the 4th richest industrialised country in terms of GDP per head. By 1993, it had fallen to 14th.
@alexvoronov använda smygfinansiering av Generell Välfärd är alltid av ondo. @NimaSanandaji: bit.ly/1Nar2eV http://t.co/wD0YEgncIE—
Old Whig (@aClassicLiberal) August 05, 2015
That regime change reversed a long economic decline since 1970 under the egalitarian policies of the Swedish Social Democratic Party. Under the Swedish Social Democratic Party, Sweden was almost always growing at less than the trend rate of growth of the USA, which was 1.9%. That position reversed only when there was a turn away from big government and high taxes.
Figure 1 tells a similar story for the British economy: a long economic decline in the 1970s when Britain was the sick man of Europe. Under Thatchernomics, Europe had a long economic boom for 20 years or more – see figure 1.
In the 1970s, under the high taxes of the Heath, Callaghan and Wilson administrations, as figure 1 shows, Britain was the sick man of Europe. With the election of the Thatcher Government, Britain soon grew at better than the US trend growth rate for nearly 20 years through few exceptions.
Graph of the Day: The UK has among the lowest total tax rates on businesses in the G7 http://t.co/l6mMhN9yLD—
CPS Think Tank (@CPSThinkTank) August 04, 2015
What happened the last time a Labour PM was elected before Blair
08 Aug 2015 Leave a comment
in economic growth, economic history, income redistribution, macroeconomics, Public Choice, rentseeking Tags: British economy, British Labour Party, British politics, Tony Blair Blair
Quarters following general elections tend to see decent growth – especially 1979 http://t.co/bJarqD8Etj—
RBS Economics (@RBS_Economics) July 28, 2015
The Left opposed airline deregulation
05 Aug 2015 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, comparative institutional analysis, economic history, economics of regulation, entrepreneurship, income redistribution, industrial organisation, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA, Public Choice, rentseeking, survivor principle Tags: airline deregulation, antimarket bias, bootleggers and baptists, expressive voting, Leftover Left, rational ignorance, rational irrationality
CHART: US average airfares 1979 to 2014 measured in number of hours work at the average wage. @chartoftheday http://t.co/q7Phz3VkU0—
Mark J. Perry (@Mark_J_Perry) August 02, 2015
The tax rates of the top 1%
04 Aug 2015 Leave a comment
in applied welfare economics, entrepreneurship, fisheries economics, income redistribution, politics - USA, rentseeking Tags: entrepreneurial alertness, envy, taxation and entrepreneurship, taxation and investment, taxation and the labour supply, top 1%
Historical Tax Rates of Top 0.01% (15,000 returns reporting more than $8 million in 2010) visualizingeconomics.com/blog/2013/8/14… http://t.co/XygW0t0npu—
Catherine Mulbrandon (@VisualEcon) August 15, 2013
North and South Korea in the 20th century
03 Aug 2015 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, comparative institutional analysis, constitutional political economy, development economics, economic history, economics of bureaucracy, growth disasters, growth miracles, income redistribution, Marxist economics, Public Choice, rentseeking Tags: central planning, North Korea, South Korea
Kerry Packer in full flight before a parliamentary committee
03 Aug 2015 Leave a comment
in economic history, economics of media and culture, entrepreneurship, income redistribution, Public Choice Tags: Kerry Packer
The Paul Berry biography of Kerry Packer is a brilliant read. A hundred hilarious stories to tell at a party and that’s just about Kerry Packer’s father, Sir Frank Packer.
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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