Figure 1: poverty rates of adults aged 20 to 54 by presence of children, 2004
Poverty rates by number of children – USA, UK, Canada and Australia
08 Jul 2015 Leave a comment
in labour economics, politics - Australia, politics - USA, population economics, poverty and inequality, welfare reform Tags: child poverty, family poverty, single mothers, single parents
Vote splitting for the Conservative Party and New Zealand First
08 Jul 2015 Leave a comment
in politics - New Zealand, Public Choice Tags: 2014 New Zealand election, Conservative Party, National Party, New Zealand First, New Zealand Labour Party, split voting, ticket splitting, voter demographics
At the 2014 General Election 31.64% of all voters split their vote compared to 30.70% in 2011. Slightly over 80% of Labour Party and National Party voters give both their party vote and electorate vote to the same party.
Source: The Electoral Commission.
New Zealand First vote splitting data above suggests more Labour voters vote New Zealand First than National Party voters by a noticeable margin. 1/3rd of voters who gave their party vote to New Zealand First voted Labour with their electorate vote. This compares to one in five New Zealand First voters who gave their electorate vote to the National Party.
Source: The Electoral Commission.
It’s a different story with the Conservative Party. A good 40% of Conservative Party voters give their electorate vote to National. This compares to a 10% split to the Labour Party.
The National Party has much to gain from the collapse of the Conservative Party as does fellow populist party New Zealand First. This split vote analysis does not throw much insight into how New Zealand First would benefit from a collapse in the Conservative Party.
If New Zealand First picks up a significant amount of the current party vote for the Conservative Party if the latter was to fold, New Zealand First will pick up one or two list seats in the next general election giving it the balance of power.
The only thing that could be said is the lack of Labour voters among Conservative Party voters suggest they are reluctant to support New Zealand First because in the past it has supported Labour Governments. The Conservative Party effectively promised to support a National Party Government.
A vote for the Conservative Party is a vote for a National Party government. A vote for New Zealand First is much more likely to see a Labour Government. That suggests to me that many Conservative Party voters are National Party voters at heart.
Are the rich getting richer, poor getting poorer as @MaxRashbrooke once again suggests?
08 Jul 2015 Leave a comment
in applied welfare economics, economic history, labour economics, politics - New Zealand, poverty and inequality, technological progress Tags: child poverty, family poverty, Leftover Left, Max Rashbrooke, The Great Enrichment, top 1%
Max Rashbrooke has been at it again in the paper today.
Don’t these graphs show that everyone is richer in New Zealand than 30 years ago and there has been not much change in either child poverty or inequality for coming on for 20 years? The fall in child poverty started before the introduction of Working for Families.
Technological progress in the form of new goods and product upgrades are poorly captured in measures of living standards over time as is increases in life expectancies.
1993 vs 2013: http://t.co/tdnNqmRmcS—
History Pics (@HistoryPixs) January 08, 2014
HT: Suffer the little children – Inequality and child poverty – Closer TogetherCloser Together.
Electric cars may be worse polluters than gas-guzzling vehicles
08 Jul 2015 Leave a comment
in applied welfare economics, environmental economics, politics - USA, transport economics Tags: expressive voting, pollution, tokenism
Environmental damage for EVs appears to be worse in the Midwest and Northeast, where the electricity grid tends to rely on coal power plants.
In places like LA, EVs produce less environmental damage because the city’s air shed traps pollutants from gas cars…
The key is where the source of the electricity all-electric cars. If it comes from coal, electric cars produce 3.6 times more soot and smog deaths than gas, because of the pollution made in generating the electricity,
via A New Analysis of U.S. Counties Shows Where Electric Vehicles Cause More Pollution Than Gas Cars – CityLab and CityLab shows how electric cars can be WORSE for the environment than gas-guzzling vehicles | Daily Mail Online.
For the first time in 14 years, USA not engaged in a major ground war
08 Jul 2015 Leave a comment
in defence economics, politics - USA, war and peace Tags: war against terror
#Dailychart: For the first time in 14 years, America is not engaged in a major ground war econ.st/1TeK8oR http://t.co/qUmjCIDQaQ—
The Economist (@ECONdailycharts) June 11, 2015
The current state of play in Syria
08 Jul 2015 Leave a comment
in defence economics, politics - USA, war and peace Tags: Middle-East politics, Syria, war against terror
A weak ISIS and a weak U.S. strategy: wapo.st/1H5LE4i http://t.co/3IpQclcSvg—
Post Graphics (@PostGraphics) July 07, 2015
Can the American fighters fly slow enough to intercept the Russian bombers
08 Jul 2015 1 Comment
in defence economics, politics - USA, war and peace Tags: obsolete military technology, Russia
Who votes Democrat and Republican?
08 Jul 2015 Leave a comment
in politics - USA Tags: voter demographics
% Republican
White evangelical 68%
White 49%
Gen. public 39%
Hispanic 26%
Asian 23%
Black 11%people-press.org/2015/04/07/a-d… http://t.co/DOLFJzCezu—
Conrad Hackett (@conradhackett) June 07, 2015
American life expectancy increases by age cohort from 1990
08 Jul 2015 Leave a comment
in economic history, health economics, politics - USA Tags: life expectancies
Why gender analysis is essential to empirical labour economics
07 Jul 2015 Leave a comment
U.S. wage growth doesn't look as weak when you account for benefit costs covered by employers on.wsj.com/1JJ2EmV http://t.co/s0tJutTjBy—
Nick Timiraos (@NickTimiraos) July 06, 2015
Can NZ double migrant investors and entrepreneurs from $3.5 billion to $7 billion at no cost to taxpayers!?
07 Jul 2015 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, comparative institutional analysis, economics of bureaucracy, entrepreneurship, income redistribution, industrial organisation, managerial economics, organisational economics, politics - New Zealand, Public Choice, public economics, rentseeking, survivor principle Tags: corporate welfare, entrepreneurial alertness, industry policy, industry targeting, The fatal conceit, The pretence to knowledge
I didn’t notice any discussion in the Cabinet paper of a government doing this before and whether their investment promotion efforts succeeded or not. This latest policy proposal cannot even count as evidence-based policy dreaming, much less a serious contribution to public policy.
Hoping to double incoming foreign investor and entrepreneur migration from $3.5 billion to $7 billion inside three years without spending any extra public money is breathless public policy making. I am sure lots of governments previously tried to get something for nothing.
It will be helpful if ministers pointed to where overseas governments have been successful in doubling foreign investment by simply reprioritising existing investment promotion efforts.
There are at least 2,500 national, provincial and city investment promotion agencies out. Some of them must have been subject to some sort of evaluation as to their success.
This overseas literature review would be in addition to the recent findings of the Ministry of Economic Development about the poor performance and perhaps futility of the foreign direct investment promotion by New Zealand Trade and Enterprise.
Imagine how much bigger a boost in foreign investor and entrepreneur migration lays before us if actual real new money was put on the table.
via beehive.govt.nz – Strategy targets international investors and Evaluation of NZTE investment support activities [929 KB PDF]
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It’s a crowded presidential field
07 Jul 2015 Leave a comment
in politics - USA Tags: 2016 presidential election
Thirteen's a crowd. Presidential candidate annoucements econ.st/1SPBtIg http://t.co/4htJqdRNlj—
The Economist (@ECONdailycharts) June 26, 2015
200 years of American immigration
06 Jul 2015 Leave a comment
in economic history, labour economics, labour supply, politics - USA Tags: economics of immigration
.@ImmigrationGOP is wrong. Immigration today is not "beyond any historical precedent" niskanencenter.org/blog/niskanen-… http://t.co/0A9LIekqjb—
David Bier (@myfreesociety) May 28, 2015
The political bias of psychologists
05 Jul 2015 Leave a comment
in economics of bureaucracy, economics of education, economics of media and culture, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA, Public Choice, rentseeking Tags: academic bias, bureaucratic bias, expressive voting, Leftover Left, media bias, occupational choice, political bias, rational ignorance, rational irrationality, social psychology, Twitter left
Why is it that the economics profession is the only profession questioned on the grounds of its political diversity?
1) Academic psychology once had considerable political diversity, but has lost nearly all of it in the last 50 years;
2) This lack of political diversity can undermine the validity of social psychological science via mechanisms such as the embedding of liberal values into research questions and methods, steering researchers away from important but politically unpalatable research topics, and producing conclusions that mischaracterize liberals and conservatives alike;
3) Increased political diversity would improve social psychological science by reducing the impact of bias mechanisms such as confirmation bias, and by empowering dissenting minorities to improve the quality of the majority’s thinking; and
4) The underrepresentation of non-liberals in social psychology is most likely due to a combination of self-selection, hostile climate, and discrimination.
via Psychology’s Political Diversity Problem | Psychology Today.
The case against waiting for trade agreements
05 Jul 2015 Leave a comment
in international economics, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA Tags: free trade agreements, globalisation, preferential trading agreements, regional trade agreements, trade creation, trade version, unilateral free trade
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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