My column in Newsroom this week makes a few guesses about where NZ local water policy may be headed. Labour forced the amalgamation of water services into new entities that National promised to throttle before they can get going. What happens next?No election platform survives contact with post-election coalition negotiations.But one outcome seems rather obvious –…
Charting a course
Charting a course
27 Oct 2023 Leave a comment
in politics - New Zealand, urban economics
Sowell Exposes Social Justice Fallacies
27 Oct 2023 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, discrimination, economic history, economics of crime, gender, history of economic thought, human capital, labour economics, labour supply, law and economics, occupational choice, politics - USA, poverty and inequality, Thomas Sowell, urban economics Tags: gender wage gap, racial discrimination, sex discrimination
Matthew Lau reviews Thomas Sowell’s latest book Social Justice Fallacies in a Financial Post article: No sacred cows in Thomas Sowell’s takedown of social justice fallacies. Excerpts in italics with my bolds and added images. In his latest book, renowned economist and author demolishes the myths that underpin the social justice movement. Thomas Sowell, age […]
Sowell Exposes Social Justice Fallacies
Upzoning with Strings Attached
21 Oct 2023 Leave a comment
in economics of regulation, income redistribution, Public Choice, rentseeking, urban economics Tags: offsetting behavior, unintended consequences, zoning
The subtitle of this paper is: “Evidence from Seattle’s Affordable Housing Mandate.” Here is the abstract: This paper analyzes the effects of a major municipal residential land use reform on new home construction and developer behavior. We examine Seattle’s Mandatory Housing Affordability (MHA) program, which relaxed zoning regulations while also encouraging affordable housing construction in […]
Upzoning with Strings Attached
Let’s Spend More Money on Something We Have to Give Away to Get People to Use It!
05 Oct 2023 Leave a comment
in transport economics, urban economics
Kansas City voters sensibly rejected spending money on light rail at least seven times. But that common sense apparently didn’t extent to streetcars, which are an even dumber idea than light rail as streetcars are slower than buses, far more expensive, and can’t get out of their own way if … Continue reading →
Let’s Spend More Money on Something We Have to Give Away to Get People to Use It!
Exploitation
07 Mar 2023 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, entrepreneurship, Marxist economics, property rights, urban economics
Laser Archaeology: Revealing the Amazon’s Urban Jungle
25 Aug 2022 Leave a comment
in economic history, urban economics
This high-speed rail project is a warning for the US
01 Aug 2022 Leave a comment
in economics of bureaucracy, environmental economics, politics - USA, Public Choice, transport economics, urban economics Tags: megaprojects
Cost Over-Runs in Infrastructure Projects
13 Jun 2022 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, comparative institutional analysis, economic history, economics of bureaucracy, industrial organisation, Public Choice, survivor principle, theory of the firm, transport economics, urban economics Tags: megaprojects
Matthew E. Kahn discusses his new book Going Remote
04 Apr 2022 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, comparative institutional analysis, health economics, labour economics, labour supply, occupational choice, transport economics, urban economics Tags: economics of pandemics
Zero road deaths goal avoid accountability for failing to achieve more realistic goals
23 Feb 2022 Leave a comment
in politics - New Zealand, transport economics, urban economics Tags: road safety, The fatal conceit, virtue signalling
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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