The Great Escape – vaccine preventable deaths
02 Aug 2015 Leave a comment
in applied welfare economics, economic history, health economics, politics - USA Tags: anti-vaccination movement, The Great Escape, vaccinations, vaccines
Death rates from the two leading causes of death in the USA since 1950
02 Aug 2015 Leave a comment
in economic history, health economics, politics - USA Tags: life expectancies, The Great Escape
Figure 1: age-adjusted death rates from heart and cerebrovascular diseases, USA, 1950 – 2013
Source: Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.
A lot more Americans have a passport
02 Aug 2015 Leave a comment
in international economics, law and economics, politics - USA Tags: passports
From 3% to 38%, America Has Seen A Staggering Growth In Passport Holders: dadaviz.com/i/3323 #dataviz http://t.co/4IJweXJvK0—
Randy Olson (@randal_olson) February 20, 2015
Tax rates on labour income across the OECD area
02 Aug 2015 Leave a comment
in labour economics, labour supply, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA, public economics Tags: Australia, British economy, Canada, France, Germany, taxation and labour supply
How high is the US #tax burden on labor? Here's an OECD comparison tax.foundation/1KojUv9 by @samcjordan_ @kpomerleau http://t.co/fSAT8ut52z—
Tax Foundation (@taxfoundation) July 24, 2015
Motor vehicle related death rates for males and females aged 15 to 24 by race since 1950 in the USA
01 Aug 2015 Leave a comment
in economic history, politics - USA, transport economics Tags: road accident rates, road safety
The large drop in white young white male deaths so dominates figure 1 that it conceals a halving in white female deaths. These measures in figure 1 are not related to propensity to drive a car. It must be hypothesised that women were driving more than they used to in the 1950s and 1960s. Nearly all of the decline in white young female road deaths has been since 1990.
Figure 1: motor vehicle related deaths of males and females aged 15 to 24 by race, USA, 1950 – 2013
Source: Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.
Deaths of black males young black males in the road actually increased in the 1980s before falling again. There has been no change at all really in the number of deaths of young black females since 1950.
The exchange rate “needs” to come down?
01 Aug 2015 Leave a comment
in inflation targeting, macroeconomics, monetary economics, politics - New Zealand Tags: central banking, forecasting errors, The fatal conceit, The pretence to knowledge
Anyone who had a good idea about what the the New Zealand dollar should be would be trading on their own account. These super-rich would not be wasting their time giving advice to others. Their time would be too handsomely rewarded for such meagre returns as pontificating to others as to what they should do with their portfolios.
https://twitter.com/JimRose69872629/status/626597273007296514
One of my delights as a bureaucrat was at a meeting between the Reserve Bank of New Zealand and the International Monetary Fund some 15 years or so ago
The Fund asked whether Bank whether it thought the exchange rate was too high, and what their exchange-rate modelling say about this?
- The reply of the Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand was we don’t have exchange rate model because we don’t think there are any good. Gone are those days.
- The International Monetary Fund team was quite flabbergasted by this response.
At one stage the Fund team tried to draw me into the conversation about the level of New Zealand dollar because I was there representing the New Zealand Treasury. I was only attended as an observer, so naturally my response to their questions was to waffle incoherently. I could have been blunter and simply said the Reserve Bank of New Zealand spoke for New Zealand in this matter, but that would have been impolite.
I’ve been continuing to reflect on Graeme Wheeler’s repeated observation that New Zealand’s exchange rate “needs” to come down. I’m still not entirely sure what he means. The exchange rate is an asset price and presumably should reflect all expected future relevant information, not just spot information about current dairy prices. And the market has no particular reason to focus on stabilising the net international investment position at around current levels. Indeed, although it is a convenient reference point, neither does the Reserve Bank.
“Need” or not, I’d have thought it was likely that the exchange rate would fall further.
The ANZ Commodity Price Index, which lags behind (for example) falling GDT and futures dairy prices, has already had one of the larger falls in the history of the series.
Meanwhile, the fall in the exchange rate, while material, remains pretty small by the standards of past New Zealand adjustments…
View original post 165 more words
Cumulative Growth in Average Inflation-Adjusted After-Tax Income by Before-Tax Income Group, 1979 to 2011 with 1% annual adjustment for inflation measurement bias
01 Aug 2015 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, economic history, politics - USA Tags: CPI bias, living standards, measurement errors, The Great Enrichment
The Congressional Budget Office did its best to adjust after-tax incomes for inflation between 1979 in 2011. In figure 1, I added an extra 1% inflation adjustment in every year from 1979. 1% per annum is a common estimate of the inflation bias introduced by the inability of most measures of inflation to account for new goods and upgrades in the quality of existing goods to name but a few bias is in the measurement of consumer price inflation.
Figure 1: Cumulative Growth in Average Inflation-Adjusted After-Tax Income, by Before-Tax Income Group, USA, 1979 to 2011, 1% upward annual adjustment for inflation bias for new goods and quality upgrades
Source: derived from Congressional Budget Office, The Distribution of Household Income and Federal Taxes, 2011.
As can be seen from figure 1, with a 1% up left for measurement bias, instead of increases of 48% and 40% in the incomes of the lowest quartile in the middle three quartiles respectively, their after-tax, after inflation incomes about doubled since 1979.
"The rich got richer, true. But…" —@DeirdreMcClosk buff.ly/1Imdv4o http://t.co/M3ERx3JTIn—
HumanProgress.org (@humanprogress) June 28, 2015
Well done, capitalism. Everyone was on a working class income in the 1970s is now on a middle-class income. Such are the joys of compounding 1% per year over more than 30 years.
Source: Congressional Budget Office, The Distribution of Household Income and Federal Taxes, 2011.
The original Congressional Budget Office diagram above with the higher income quartiles is presented for comparison. I didn’t present the top quartiles in figure 1 because it made it unreadable because of the dominant influence of the top 1%’s increase in income.
The lesson for the day is small inaccuracies in the measurement of prosperity can over several decades through compounding lead to massive misunderstandings of the increases in prosperity.
The American stock market is highly regulated
01 Aug 2015 Leave a comment
in economic history, economics of regulation, financial economics, industrial organisation, politics - USA Tags: financial regulation, rational ignorance, rational irrationality
Check out this awesome chart of U.S. Market Complexity
bloomberg.com/news/articles/… http://t.co/gRQNnhwjZo—
Barry Ritholtz (@ritholtz) July 09, 2015
Would the reckless maritime protests of @Greenpeace be tolerated on land?
01 Aug 2015 Leave a comment
in economics of crime, environmental economics, environmentalism, law and economics, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA, property rights, Rawls and Nozick, transport economics Tags: Greenpeace, John Rawls, peaceful protest
Were the Greenpeace runabouts observing maritime safety rules such as avoiding collisions and giving way? Any protester that behaved like that in a car would be immediately arrested and charged.
Why it is tolerated in the high seas is beyond me when it would never be tolerated on the road. No one would pretend reckless driving was peaceful protest. Is it okay to behave recklessly in a boat? No one would accept that in a car on land.
Central to the notion of peaceful protest is fidelity to democracy and the rule of law. The idea is not to impose your will upon others, but to persuade the majority to reconsider their position by showing the passionate extent to which you disagree with them and honestly believe they are mistaken.
The civil disobedient is attempting to appeal to the “sense of justice” of the majority and a willingness to accept arrest is proof of the integrity of the act says Rawls:
…any interference with the civil liberties of others tends to obscure the civilly disobedient quality of one’s act.
Rawls argues that the use or threat of violence is incompatible with a reasoned appeal to fellow citizens to move them to change a law. The actions are not a means of coercing or frightening others into conforming to one’s wishes. That is a breach of the principles of a just society.
Death rates for homicide, black and white males aged 15 to 19, USA, 1950-2013
01 Aug 2015 Leave a comment
in economic history, economics of crime, law and economics, politics - USA Tags: crime and punishment, life expectancies
Figure 1: Death rates for homicide, black and white males aged 15 to 19: United States, selected years 1950-2013
Source: Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.
Life expectancies at age 65 by sex and race, USA, 1950 – 2010
31 Jul 2015 1 Comment
in applied welfare economics, economic history, health economics, politics - USA Tags: life expectancies, The Great Escape
There was quite a jump in life expectancy in the decades of the 1950s and 1960s, followed by slow progress for white females and black females. In the case of men of both races, the situation appears to be steady progress in post retirement life expectancy since 1950. Black male life expectancy actually fell in the 1960s for those aged 65.
Figure 1: life expectancies at age 65 by sex and race, USA, 1950 – 2010
Source: Centres for Disease Control and Prevention.
Why do @NZGreens want NZ to lead the world by example on a carbon tax, but not unilateral free trade?
31 Jul 2015 Leave a comment
in David Friedman, environmental economics, global warming, international economics, Milton Friedman, Murray Rothbard, politics - New Zealand Tags: antiforeign bias, antimarket bias, carbon tax, carbon trading, climate treaties, expressive voting, free trade, global warming, left-wing double standards, Left-wing hypocrisy, New Zealand Greens, protectionism, rational ignorance, rational irrationality, unilateral free trade
NZ’s greenhouse gas emissions are high per person and unit of GDP but have fallen since 1990 oe.cd/10z http://t.co/f5BMLMvTjq—
OECD Publications (@OECD_Pubs) June 10, 2015
Who is unpopular in the Republican primaries?
31 Jul 2015 Leave a comment
in politics - USA Tags: 2016 presidential election
Trump ahead in polls. So much more more ahead in negatives. Who's most popular in GOP? So far, Walker. http://t.co/MCgZQoougF—
ian bremmer (@ianbremmer) July 30, 2015
Trigger warning for the Twitter Left
31 Jul 2015 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, constitutional political economy, income redistribution, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA, Public Choice, public economics, rentseeking Tags: antimarket bias, endogenous growth theory, expressive voting, laffer curve, Leftover Left, taxation and entrepreneurship, taxation and human capital, taxation and investment, taxation and the labour supply, top 1%, Twitter left
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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