US income taxes are highly progressive
19 Jun 2015 Leave a comment
in politics - USA, public economics Tags: earned income tax credit, family tax credits, progressive income taxes, tax incidence, top 1%, welfare state
What territory Mexican drug cartels control
18 Jun 2015 Leave a comment
in development economics, economics of crime, law and economics, politics - USA Tags: drug cartels, drug legalisation, Mexico, Narco States, war on drugs
Australian dialects mapped
18 Jun 2015 Leave a comment
in politics - Australia Tags: Australia, economics of languages
Trends in the real minimum wage, PPP, Australia, New Zealand, USA and UK since 2000
18 Jun 2015 Leave a comment
in economic history, labour economics, minimum wage, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA Tags: Australia, British economy
Figure 1: real minimum wage, 2013 constant prices, purchasing power parity, US$, Australia, New Zealand, USA and UK
Source: OECD StatExtract.
The MMP what-ifs if Colin Craig been deposed as Conservative Party leader
18 Jun 2015 Leave a comment
in politics - New Zealand, Public Choice
If Colin Craig is deposed tomorrow as the leader of the Conservative Party of New Zealand, his party will fall apart and run as a rump at the next election. The tables below discuss what might happen to the party vote that drifts back to the major parties with the collapse of the Conservative Party.
Table 1: 2014 general election status quo
| Party name | Party Votes won | Party seat entitlement | No. of electorate seats won | No. of list MPs | Total MPs | % of MPs | |
| ACT New Zealand | 0.69% | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0.83% | |
| Green Party | 10.70% | 14 | 0 | 14 | 14 | 11.57% | |
| Labour Party | 25.13% | 32 | 27 | 5 | 32 | 26.45% | |
| Māori Party | 1.32% | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1.65% | |
| National Party | 47.04% | 60 | 41 | 19 | 60 | 49.59% | |
| New Zealand First Party | 8.66% | 11 | 0 | 11 | 11 | 9.09% | |
| United Future | 0.22% | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | * | 0.83% |
| Totals | 93.76% | 120 | 71 | 50 | 121 | 100.00% |
As the table 2 below shows, if about 2% of the party vote of the Conservative party drifts back to National, and 2/10th of a percentage point of that party vote of the Conservative Party going to United Future, the National Party not only wins a majority in Parliament, the overhang in Parliament disappears as well. The United Future Party seat comes off the representation of the Labour Party if its party vote exceeds 0.4%. There are no other changes of note.
Table 2: 2014 general election with Conservative party rump
| Party name | Party Votes won | Party seat entitlement | No. of electorate seats won | No. of list MPs | Total MPs | % of MPs | |
| ACT New Zealand | 0.89% | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0.83% | |
| Green Party | 10.70% | 13 | 0 | 13 | 13 | 10.83% | |
| Labour Party | 25.43% | 31 | 27 | 4 | 31 | 25.83% | |
| Māori Party | 1.32% | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1.67% | |
| National Party | 49.07% | 61 | 41 | 20 | 61 | 50.83% | |
| New Zealand First Party | 9.16% | 11 | 0 | 11 | 11 | 9.17% | |
| United Future | 0.42% | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0.83% | |
| Totals | 96.99% | 120 | 71 | 49 | 120 | 100.00% |
The National Party almost won a majority in the last election so only a small amount of the Conservative Party’s party vote drifting back to it more so than the other parties can boost it to 61 votes and an absolute majority in its own right. Tomorrow is a big day for the future of New Zealand politics and the chances of the Left winning government any time soon.
Many forget how expensive the moon program was in the 60s and that it wasn’t popular!
18 Jun 2015 Leave a comment
in applied welfare economics, economic history, politics - USA Tags: expressive voting, moon, NASA, public R&D, R&D, space program
NASA's budget as a percentage of Federal spending. Wish this chart went up. =( buff.ly/1FygxQ7 http://t.co/dEczs1QNoi—
Tyler Vigen (@TylerVigen) May 26, 2015
…many people believe that Project Apollo was popular, probably because it garnered significant media attention, but the polls do not support a contention that Americans embraced the lunar landing mission.
Consistently throughout the 1960s a majority of Americans did not believe Apollo was worth the cost, with the one exception to this a poll taken at the time of the Apollo 11 lunar landing in July 1969.
And consistently throughout the decade 45-60 percent of Americans believed that the government was spending too much on space, indicative of a lack of commitment to the spaceflight agenda. These data do not support a contention that most people approved of Apollo and thought it important to explore space.
HT: Moondoggle: The Forgotten Opposition to the Apollo Program – The Atlantic.
Education and single motherhood
18 Jun 2015 Leave a comment
in economics of education, gender, labour economics, labour supply, occupational choice, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA, welfare reform Tags: single mothers
There's a clear increase in single-parent households for parents who haven’t gone to college: on.wsj.com/1B1Xeuq http://t.co/eW2fH8bX5O—
Real Time Economics (@WSJecon) May 17, 2015
Ideological rankings of presidential candidates based on Twitter followers
18 Jun 2015 Leave a comment
in politics - USA Tags: 2016 presidential election, Twitter
Ideological rankings of presidential candidates based on Twitter followers from @p_barbera wapo.st/1el8BJB http://t.co/ZbW8BOSWmm—
The Monkey Cage (@monkeycageblog) June 16, 2015
The opportunity cost of expressive politics: fossil fuels disinvestment versus actually doing something that might help
17 Jun 2015 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, comparative institutional analysis, environmental economics, global warming, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA, Public Choice, rentseeking Tags: cap and trade, carbon tax, carbon trading, climate alarmism, expressive voting, fossil fuel disinvestment, global warming, rational irrationality, Robert Stavins
Trigger Warnings, Safe Spaces, Micro-aggressions, and other Fruits of Campus Feminism
17 Jun 2015 Leave a comment
in liberalism, politics - USA Tags: Christina Hoff Sommers, expressive politics, expressive voting, feminism, identity politics, political correctness
Why Donald Trump Isn’t A Real Candidate, In One Chart
17 Jun 2015 2 Comments
in politics - USA Tags: 2016 presidential election, Donald Trump
Gender differences in PISA scores, 2012, UK, USA, New Zealand and Australia
16 Jun 2015 Leave a comment
in economics of education, human capital, labour economics, occupational choice, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA Tags: economics of personality traits, gender gap, PISA, reversing gender gap
Boys’ dominance just about endures in maths: at age 15 they are, on average, the equivalent of three months’ schooling ahead of girls. In science the results are fairly even.
But in reading, where girls have been ahead for some time, a gulf has appeared. In all 64 countries and economies in the study, girls outperform boys. The average gap is equivalent to an extra year of schooling.
Figure 1: : Gender differences (boys – girls) in student performance in reading, mathematics and science in PISA 2012
Source: OECD family database.
Yield of organic crops as percentage of conventional crops
16 Jun 2015 Leave a comment
in environmental economics, environmentalism, health economics, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA Tags: agricultural economics, food snobs, organic farming
Yield of organic row crops as percentage of conventional
ganaderiayagro.blogspot.com/2015/05/organi… http://t.co/pjdbNEhvSH—
C. S. Prakash (@AgBioWorld) June 01, 2015
Why organic food costs more? -relative yield vs. conventional
ganaderiayagro.blogspot.com/2015/05/organi… http://t.co/xWcQiJoZ6K—
C. S. Prakash (@AgBioWorld) June 01, 2015
US natural disasters map
16 Jun 2015 Leave a comment
in economics of natural disasters, politics - USA Tags: maps, natural disasters
Natural disaster risk maps http://t.co/fXvRR0Fbtf—
Charts and Maps (@ChartsandMaps) April 11, 2015
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