Source: OECD Economic Survey New Zealand 2015.
@Maori_Party New Zealanders aged 25 to 34 with NCEA level 4 or above qualifications by ethnicity
26 Feb 2016 Leave a comment
in economic history, economics of education, politics - New Zealand Tags: education premium, Maori economic development
#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.
@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.
Megan McArdle’s iron law of commentary on refugee policy @GreenCatherine
24 Feb 2016 Leave a comment
in Economics of international refugee law, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA Tags: asylum seekers, cognitive psychology, psychology of persuasion, refugee policy
Think Again: The Green Economy @janlogie @GarethMP
23 Feb 2016 Leave a comment
in applied welfare economics, energy economics, environmental economics, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA, Public Choice, resource economics Tags: climate alarmism, green economy, green rent seeking
Source: Matthew Kahn (2009) Think Again: The Green Economy | Foreign Policy
@NZGreens @nzlabour @uklabour @berniesanders bite a gift horse in the mouth when complaining about the ignorance of the average voter
23 Feb 2016 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economic history, economics of information, politics - New Zealand, Public Choice Tags: anti-foreign bias, anti-market bias, Bryan Caplan, Deirdre McCloskey, make-work bias, New Zealand Greens, New Zealand Labour, pessimism bias, rational ignorance, rational irrationality, votor demographics
Fascinating. Yawning chasm between why Labour members think they lost and why voters think they did. From @thetimes http://t.co/MvhZYI2CTr—
Joe Watts (@JoeWatts_) July 23, 2015
Left-wingers do whinge about voters not understanding; about how if only the voters understood better their arguments than they do now. The Left thinks voters just keep getting it wrong.
They do not know how lucky they are. Rational ignorance and rational irrationality are a rich harvest for the policies of Labour and the Greens.
Most of the policies of Labour and the Greens are premised on cultivating the rational irrationalities of voters. These lead to Bryan Caplan’s pessimism bias, an anti-market bias, an anti-foreign bias and make-work bias:
The evidence—most notably, the results of the 1996 Survey of Americans and Economists on the Economy—shows that the general public’s views on economics not only are different from those of professional economists but are less accurate, and in predictable ways.
The public really does generally hold, for starters, that prices are not governed by supply and demand, that protectionism helps the economy, that saving labour is a bad idea, and that living standards are falling.
Politicians mindful of re-election must pander to these four biases.
Fortunately, for the New Zealand Labour Party and the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand, voters have no rational reason to correct these four biases. Voters are rationally irrational. As each individual counts so little, why spend any time correcting biased political beliefs?
Anti-market bias: The tendency to underestimate the benefits of the market mechanism. The typical voter equates market phenomena such as profitability and interest as examples of unbridled monetary confiscations by ‘greedy’ businesses. This biased against the market, despite all its successes, is a rich field to till for both Labour and the Greens
Anti-foreign bias: The tendency to underestimate the economic benefits of interaction with foreigners. This antagonism towards such trends as outsourcing employment overseas, or selling raw materials to faraway traders, is reminiscent of the mercantilism Adam Smith so brilliantly demolished but it still lives on today in the hearts of the voting citizenry. Labour and the Greens play to that bias shamelessly.
Make-work bias: The tendency to underestimate the economic benefits from conserving labour. Those who look to the visible face of job losses overlook the job gains (often by those who lost their jobs) to be made tomorrow in emerging industries. The Greens and Labour are sure-fire enemies of creative destruction.
Pessimistic bias: The tendency to overestimate the severity of economic problems, and to underestimate the recent past, present and future performance of the economy. In The Progress Paradox (2003), Gregg Easterbrook ridicules abundance denial:
Our forebears, who worked and sacrificed tirelessly in the hopes their descendants would someday be free, comfortable, healthy, and educated, might be dismayed to observe how acidly we deny we now are these things.
Many average voters seem to feel that Malthus was correct in diagnosing the allegedly poor prospects for the market economy.
Where would the voting base of the Greens be without a pessimism bias? They are professional pessimists and doomsday prophets from their earliest days. Labour assumes working class Tories are dupes of what is left of fading media barons such as Rupert Murdoch.
Charges following fatal and serious injury New Zealand police crashes, 2003 – 2008
23 Feb 2016 Leave a comment
in economics of crime, law and economics, politics - New Zealand Tags: criminal deterrence, law and order, police chases, police killings, road safety
Source: Rodney Hide, “Pursuit culture skews police priorities”, National Business Review, 19 February 2016, p.28.
If New Zealand were your home instead of The US you would
22 Feb 2016 Leave a comment
in applied welfare economics, politics - New Zealand
Deaths and serious injuries in New Zealand police chases, 2003 – 2008
22 Feb 2016 Leave a comment
in economics of crime, law and economics, politics - New Zealand Tags: criminal deterrence, law and order, police chases, police killings
Rodney Hide found that one in four New Zealand police chases ends in a crash. Of the 137 police pursuits that ended in death or serious injury between 2003 and 2008 there are 9 violence charges. Six were for manslaughter – all caused by crashes that ended the chase. There was also one charge of murder relating to the crash at the end of the chase. No violence charges arose from information known at the time of the start of the police chase. There was ambiguous information about a charge of kidnapping after a police chase. I could not determine if this kidnapping was known at the time the police chase started and therefore was its motive.
Source: Rodney Hide, “Pursuit culture skews police priorities”, National Business Review, 19 February 2016, p.28.
In all, 13 of the 137 police chases were motivated by the fleeing driver having committed a crime. The most serious of these was burglary. Rodney Hide also found that between 2005 and 2008 there are an average of 182 police chases a month.
I am all for police chasing kidnappers and armed criminals brandishing their weapons. As for the rest, they are not serious offenders. Chasing them puts the public at risk. Most of the fleeing drivers and their passengers are enthusiastic applicants for the Darwin awards.
Trade policy parallels @BernieSanders @realdonaldtrump @NZGreens? @nzlabour?
20 Feb 2016 Leave a comment
in international economics, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA, Public Choice
Source: Trade Policy Parallels | Econbrowser.
Note: PNTR is Permanent Normal Trade Relations, formerly “Most Favored Nation” status.
Public, mandatory & voluntary private social expenditure, G7, Nordics, Australia & New Zealand
20 Feb 2016 Leave a comment
in applied welfare economics, economics of regulation, fiscal policy, labour economics, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA, welfare reform Tags: British economy, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Norway, social insurance, Sweden, welfare state
Mandatory and voluntary private social expenditure makes a big difference to the degree of social insurance in some countries but not others. The calculation of these numbers in purchasing power parity would be much more interesting.
Source: OECD Income Distribution database.
% social benefits in cash by income quintile, G7, Nordics, Australia and New Zealand
20 Feb 2016 Leave a comment
in fiscal policy, income redistribution, labour economics, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA, Public Choice, welfare reform Tags: British economy, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Norway, social insurance, Sweden, welfare state
Some welfare states are much more targeted. Australia has the most targeted welfare state in terms of public social benefits paid in cash to the bottom quintile (Q1) of income earners.
Source: OECD Income Distribution database.
Gary Becker on the weak case for junk food taxes @JordNZ @dpfdpf
20 Feb 2016 Leave a comment
in economics of regulation, health economics, liberalism, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA Tags: do gooders, food police, junk food taxes, meddlesome preferences, nanny state, sugar taxes
Source: Gary Becker Fat Taxes, or Just Fat? | Hoover Institution (2010).
Most healthcare expenditures are in the last 3 to 6 months of life. Smokers and overeaters live shorter lives. This can save more than it costs to the health budget. That finding is sufficiently frequent as to put the fiscal case for junk food taxes and sugar taxes on the canvas but still with a chance of getting back up to fight on.
At a minimum, it makes junk food and sugar taxes a legitimate topic for honest disagreement. That is before you consider that people have the right to live their lives according to their own lights and make a few sometimes big mistakes along the way as part of finding their way.
Commercial evaluation of KiwiRail, Solid Energy and total SOE portfolio in New Zealand since 2007
20 Feb 2016 Leave a comment
in fiscal policy, industrial organisation, politics - New Zealand, public economics Tags: government ownership, privatisation, state owned enterprises
Two dogs of an investment propped up a $20 billion portfolio that a few years later was worth less than 1/5 of that. Both of these stalwarts are now worth not even one dollar.
Source:New Zealand Treasury – information released under the Official Information Act, January 2016.
Expected years in retirement by gender in the G7 countries, Australia and New Zealand
19 Feb 2016 Leave a comment
in labour economics, labour supply, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA Tags: ageing society, demographic crisis, old age pensions, older workers
Source: OECD Pensions at a Glance 2015.
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