Conscientiousness is associated with conservatism and Openness is associated with liberalism. Emotional Stability is associated with conservative economic attitudes and Agreeableness is associated with liberal economic attitudes.
The Effect of Personality on Social and Economic Political Attitudes
04 Mar 2016 Leave a comment
in constitutional political economy, Public Choice
Donald Trump is uniquely unsuited to be president – @latimesopinion
03 Mar 2016 Leave a comment
in politics - USA, Public Choice
Japanese, Korean and US general government expenditure as a % of GDP since 1960
02 Mar 2016 Leave a comment
in development economics, economic history, growth miracles, Public Choice, public economics Tags: growth of government, Japan, size of government, South Korea
The price of @RealDonaldTrump burning his bridges with anyone who disagrees with him
01 Mar 2016 Leave a comment
in politics - USA, Public Choice
A fragile state lists from DFID
29 Feb 2016 Leave a comment
in constitutional political economy, development economics, growth disasters, Public Choice, rentseeking Tags: failed states
Bring back @RusselNorman to save the planet from @NZGreens MPs carbon footprint @DBSeymour
28 Feb 2016 Leave a comment
in economics of bureaucracy, environmental economics, global warming, politics - New Zealand, Public Choice, transport economics Tags: carbon footprint, carbon offsets, Left-wing hypocrisy, New Zealand Greens, rational irrationality
Living the clean, green lifestyle means more than just buying carbon-offs in the same way that indulgences for sins were sold by the mediaeval Catholic Church. Russell Norman was an MP for 9 of the 12 months covered by this chart. He consistently had one of the smallest carbon footprints of a Green MP even when he was still co-leader of the Greens and not just a backbench MP.
Source: New Zealand Parliament – Members’ expense disclosure from 1 October to 31 December 2015.
New Zealand MP travel expenses 1 October – 31 December 2015 @DBSeymour
28 Feb 2016 1 Comment
in economics of bureaucracy, environmental economics, global warming, politics - New Zealand, Public Choice, rentseeking, transport economics Tags: carbon footprint, New Zealand Greens, rational irrationality
10 of the 14 green MPs have above-average air travel expenses – have an above average carbon footprint for a member of the New Zealand Parliament. It is not easy to be Green.
Source: New Zealand Parliament – Members’ expense disclosure from 1 October to 31 December 2015.
#Childpoverty has nothing to do with @AmnestyNZ
25 Feb 2016 Leave a comment
in economics of bureaucracy, international economics, politics - New Zealand
What gave Amnesty International its strength, appeal and political credibility was most could agree with its opposition to the imprisonment of prisoners of conscience and to torture and that political prisoners should be put on trial.
Including child poverty as part of its most recent international annual report proves Robert Conquest’s 3rd law of politics: the behaviour of any bureaucratic organization can best be understood by assuming that it is controlled by a secret cabal of its enemies
Source: 2015/16 Annual report – The State of the World’s Human Rights | Amnesty International NZ.
Amnesty International should not be giving people reasons not to join. It should stick to its original mission, which most people support. An NGO with members from across the political spectrum has much more credibility and influence.
Data chauvinism versus the 1st law of public policy development
25 Feb 2016 Leave a comment
in applied welfare economics, comparative institutional analysis, economics of bureaucracy, Public Choice
I learnt at the Australian Productivity Commission that the first law of public policy development is plagiarise, plagiarise, plagiarise. Why be original? Copy the successes of others, improve upon them, but do not repeat their failures, just learn from them.
I developed this policy insight from my experience at the Productivity Commission with a smart-arse Commissioner – that was the chairman’s private description of him in a conversation with me, not mine.
This Commissioner with whom I had countless arguments would respond to the many US studies I had marshalled by always asking for Australian evidence – what is the Australian evidence?
He knew that there was no Australian data or studies so he could slow the whole policy process down through this appeal to data chauvinism. The Americans are swimming in data and that is before you get to their cross-sectional data with 50 states.
Ever since then, I regarded data chauvinism – the request for Australian evidence and studies or New Zealand evidence and studies – as a stalling tactic designed either to defend the status quo.
By and large, all the local evidence shows when it augments the US studies is how a local regulation or tax screws things up further. Local evidence rarely served the interests of my opponents who were fighting against deregulation or privatisation.
It is a good public policy – you are much more likely to implement a proposal or act on a particular empirical study – if there are half a dozen to a dozen overseas studies preferably in several different countries showing much the same thing. Beware the man of one study. Milton Friedman (1957) rightly preferred to emphasize the congruence of evidence from a number of different sources and with due attention to the quality of the data:
I have preferred to place major emphasis on the consistency of results from different studies and to cover lightly a wide range of evidence rather than to examine intensively a few limited studies.
The role of empirical evidence is to resolve disagreements – to bring people closer together. One study in one country rarely does that. Many studies in many countries about the same topic of controversy is far more persuasive.
Chinese, Hong Kong, Taiwanese and Japanese billionaires by source of wealth
24 Feb 2016 Leave a comment
in development economics, economic history, entrepreneurship, financial economics, growth miracles, industrial organisation, rentseeking, survivor principle Tags: billionaires, China, entrepreneurial alertness, Hong Kong, Japan, superstar wages, superstars, Taiwan
Surprisingly few billionaires in any of the 4 countries obtained their wealth through political connections. Founding a company seems to be still the path of great wealth even in Japan these days. Hong Kong is a financial centre so the large number of billionaires in its financial sector is no surprise.
@GarethMP proves the case for privatisation when arguing against privatisation
24 Feb 2016 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, comparative institutional analysis, economics of bureaucracy, industrial organisation, politics - New Zealand, Public Choice, public economics Tags: anti-market bias, New Zealand Greens, privatisation, rational irrationality, state owned enterprises
Green MP Gareth Hughes today nailed the case as to why governments should never run businesses. Too many MPs simply do not understand what dividends represent and what the profits from asset sales represent.
Hughes was reported today saying that taxpayers lost nearly $1 billion in dividends since the recent privatisations of power companies. He is the Green party spokesman on state owned enterprises.
Source: Asset sales cost hits $1 billion | Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand.
Does the Green Party understand that an asset sells for a price equal to its risk-adjusted discounted net present value of the stream of dividends. When you sell a financial asset, you cash out the net present value of the stream of dividends that might have come from those assets.
The Greens, who are prissy about government transparency and dishonesty of their opponents, did not mention the $4.7 billion in revenue from the asset sale. Taxpayers now receiving more in dividends as a part owner of the privatised power companies than they did as a full owner.
Hughes had the cheek to complain about the politicisation of those privatisations such as favourable terms for small share buyers. That inability of governments to even sell an asset competently is a strong reason why governments should never run businesses in the first place.
If an asset cannot be sold in the full light of day – a major issue in an election campaign and a referendum – without the sale price that is politicised, what is the chance of good management of any state-owned enterprise when it is not the central focus of opposition scrutiny?
It is been many years since dividends from the state-owned enterprise portfolio has been a net positive cash flow for the taxpayer, as the chart below shows.
Source: New Zealand Treasury – data released under the Official Information Act.
KiwiRail and Solid Energy gobbled up whatever dividends came out of the power companies. Aside from power companies, state-owned enterprises not really offer much in the way of dividends to the taxpayer as the chart again shows.
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