@tslumley on spending ½ PHARMAC budget on one semi-wonder drug @PeterDunneMP

13 Nov 2015 2 Comments

by Jim Rose in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, health economics, politics - New Zealand

Thomas Lumley wrote a great post today on the unavoidably brutal arithmetic of rationing the budget of PHARAC – the New Zealand government agency that buys drugs for the public health system.

Would you spend $200,000 per drug for two thousand melanoma cancer patients. It doesn’t work 66% of the time, but helps 34% of patients and cures 6% of patients.

The trick in the tail is funding the drug would cost half the entire budget of PHAMRAC.

Many more wonder drugs, more correctly, semi-wonder drugs coming down the pipe, so these life or death decisions will not get any fewer in a world of scarcity.

In 1979, Gordon Tullock wrote a 1979 New York Law Review book about avoiding difficult choices. As per Gordon Tullock, he barely mentioned the books are mainly discussed as a stream of consciousness his reactions to the book. His review was a review of a book by Guido Calabresi and Philip Bobbitt called Tragic Choices which was about the rationing: the allocation of kidney dialysis machines (a “good”), military service in wartime (a “bad”), and entitlements to have children (a mixed blessing). Tullock argued that we make a decision about:

  1. how to allocate resources,
  2. how to distribute the resources, and
  3. how to think about the previous two choices.

People do not want to face up to the fact resources are scarce and they face limits on their powers.

To reduce the personal distress of making these tragic choices, Tullock observed that people often allocate and distribute resources in a different way so as to better conceal from themselves the unhappy choices they had to make even if this means the recipients of these choices are worse off and more lives are lost than if more open and honest choices about there are can only be so much that can be done.

The increasing number of both wonder drugs and semi-wonder drugs that cost the earth will increase the importance of facing up to difficult choices more honestly than in the past.

How @IainLG @suemoroney @NZPSA argued against zero-hours contract regulation when arguing for a ban

12 Nov 2015 Leave a comment

by Jim Rose in job search and matching, labour economics, labour supply, personnel economics, politics - New Zealand, unemployment, welfare reform

I stayed on after my Parliamentary testimony this morning to listen to others. A dozen or more made submissions arguing for more regulation – usually asking that zero hours contracts be outlawed.

I was the only submitter so far who argued against any regulation of zero hours contracts. I was thanked for putting a different perspective at the end of my submission. All members of the committee were very polite and listen to what I had to say.

Inadvertently, of course, Iain Lees-Galloway and Sue Moroney of the Labour Party and several members of the Public Service Association unearthed telling points against the case for regulation of zero hours contracts in the course of the morning in both the submissions and through the Q&A.

The first member of the Public Service Association to present information against zero hours contracts was a home support worker who was a union organiser.

This Public Service Association union organiser said, among many points in a kitchen sink submission, that zero hour contracts would deter people from entering her industry. That’s my point about zero hours contracts:

  1. Zero hours contracts are a risk to employers when recruiting unless they are packaged within an attractive job offer; and
  2. Offering a zero hours contracts will deter applicants from accepting a job offer unless there is some compensating factor in that offer.

A second member of the Public Service Association talked about her daughter who was on a zero hours contract in her first job. After a seven-month spell of unemployment, her daughter worked as many shifts as possible to show she was a valued member of her team. Good for her. In low skilled jobs, what employers look for is someone who is friendly and reliable.

Part of that story was about the difficulties of her daughter with the correct payment of her unemployment benefit. Every Friday she has to telephone WINZ to forecast how many hours she expected to work in the following week so her unemployment benefit is correctly calculated for the following paid day.

From time to time, the submitter’s daughter was called in at the last minute for a shift on her zero hours contract at the weekend so that estimate of the previous day is incorrect and she is overpaid on her benefit.

This retention of unemployment benefit eligibility is a key point against the arguments raised by Iain Lee-Galloway about how workers and, in particular, the unemployed have no option but to accept zero hours contracts. Galloway was correct in making this the crux of the matter.

He can he kept stressing the inequality of bargaining power and a lack of options of job applicants when questioning me at the hearings this morning.

It was Iain Lees-Galloway who set up this bargaining power inequality as a crucial argument against zero hours contracts, not me. Zero hours contracts are said by the Labour Party and the unions to be a bad deal. It’s an offer job seekers cannot refuse, especially if they’re unemployed.

If beneficiaries do have options and they can refuse an offer of a zero hours contract, as 50% of British unemployment beneficiaries do, most arguments for the regulation or prohibition of zero hours contracts fall of the first hurdle.

The submitter’s daughter was still on an unemployment benefit despite taking a zero hours contract. She had options. She had a basic income, the unemployment benefit, so she was never left in the lurch if there was no shift that week. She never earned less than the unemployment benefit weekend and week out and often earned more.

  • No one who already has a job would take a zero hours contracts unless they were confident of matching the hours and income they earn now; and
  • An unemployment beneficiary keeps the unemployment benefit as a cushion when they accept a zero hours contract unless they earn more than $200 a week.

The unemployment benefit allows beneficiaries to earn up to $200 a week after which benefit is withdrawn at 50 cents per dollar. As the beneficiary is still on the benefit, they have access to those all-important 2nd tier benefits ranging from accommodation allowances to special grants for unexpected urgent expenses.

Zero hours contracts allow the unemployed to make the benefit pay. Simon Chapple pointed out to me a few years ago that part-time work and benefit receipt can be an attractive long-term option for low skilled workers such as single mothers. The unemployment or single-parent beneficiary who works part-time has the certainty of the unemployment benefit plus a couple hundred dollars extra-week from their part-time job while retaining the second tier benefits that guard against unexpected expenses.

Sue Moroney then finished off the case against regulating zero hours contracts when questioning a submitter from the construction industry. The submitter was discussing the generosity of parental leave as well as zero hours contracts.

Sue Moroney pointed out that because of childcare responsibilities, the ability of that industry to attract women is greatly diminished if they offer zero hours contracts. She was pointing out a major cost of zero hours contracts to employers who offer them.

Sue Moroney highlighted the risk to employers of cutting themselves off from a major part of the job applicant pool – mothers of young children. That is a big cost unless employers offering zero hours contracts either pay a wage premium to keep access to that talent or offer these contracts to teenagers and adults, men and women, who circumstances dispose to working variable hours, sometimes working long hours and sometimes not working at all that week.

Zero hours contracts is an issue about job search and job matching. These contracts will benefit some employers and some employees. Other jobseekers will not sign such contracts. Still others will find that after signing a zero hours contract, that was not the best choice for them in retrospect. That form of on-the-job learning about competing job opportunities is common. Young people spend their first 10 to 15 years in the workforce job shopping. They move through half a dozen or more different jobs, employers and even industries before they find a good fit for them and stay on.

All in all, zero hours contracts empower the unemployed. Zero-hours contracts allow the unemployed to try out jobs while keeping their unemployment or single parent benefit. They don’t have to go completely off the benefit then risk a stand-down period of 6 to 12 weeks if they leave a regular job that is unsatisfactory.

Furthermore, the zero hours contracts give them an opportunity sometimes to earn a lot of money in a short period of time was still retaining their benefit eligibility. As another member of the Public Service Association mentioned when your wages balloon because of long hours one week, your benefit is wound back, but they are still on their benefit. They don’t have to reapply and risk of stand-down period

Zero hours contracts expand the options of jobseekers, especially the unemployed. Taking a zero hours contract gives the unemployed the option to test out a job without having to give up their unemployment benefit. They are empowering, not put upon as the Labour Party and the union members argued today.

Just testified before a parliamentary committee on zero hours contracts

12 Nov 2015 2 Comments

by Jim Rose in labour economics, labour supply, managerial economics, occupational choice, organisational economics, personnel economics, politics - New Zealand, unions Tags: , ,

My submission to the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee today on the Employment Standards Bill is there should be no regulation of zero hours contracts:

  1. Workers sign these contracts because they are to their net advantage;

  2. Always knowing your working hours in advance is known only to about 30% of shift workers; and

  3. Workers command a wage premium when they sign zero hours contracts.

The obvious question is why do jobseekers sign a zero hours contract if it is not in their interests? Most of all, why would a worker who already has a job quit to work on a zero hours contract unless it is to their advantage?

If zero hours contracts are oppressive, the only workers hired on them would be the unemployed. Anyone who has a job would refuse such offers. Those unemployed that do sign a zero hours contract would quit as soon as a better offer comes along. 50% of job offers to British welfare beneficiaries to work on a zero hours contract are turned down.

This frequent refusal of zero hours contracts not only suggests there are options for jobseekers including the unemployed but there are costs to employers. The most likely employer response to reduce these costs of rejection is a offer to pay more to sign a zero hours contract. Everyone in this room knows contractors who work in much more than those in regular employment.

Unless labour markets are highly uncompetitive with employers having massive power over employees, employers should have to pay a wage premium if zero-hour contracts are a hassle for workers. It is standard for unusual, irregular or casual work to come with a wage premium. If you want regular hours, fixed hours, that comes at a price – a lower wage per hour.

Zero hours contracts is creative destruction in the labour market. Plenty of new ways of working have emerged in recent years: the proliferation of part-time work, temporary workers, leased workers, working from home, teleworking and contracting. Employment laws  rest on the now decaying assumption that workers have long, stable relationships with single employers.

At least a quarter of a million New Zealanders already work shifts often with little notice of changes. Work schedules are always known in advance only to 31% of temporary, seasonal and casual employees. Another quarter of these have about two weeks or more notice of shifts. Hundreds of thousands of New Zealand workers freely sign on for variable hours.

image

Source: Survey of Working Life December Quarter 2012, Statistics New Zealand, Table 13.

Something new and innovative such a zero hours contract should not be regulated because it is not well understood. Zero hours contracts don’t come cheap for employers because of the risk of job offer rejection. There must be offsetting advantages that allow this practice to survive in competition with other ways of hiring a cost competitive labour force.

The fixed costs of recruitment and training are such that one 40-hour worker is cheaper than hiring and training two 20-hour workers. Zero hour contracts would be most likely in jobs with low recruitment costs, few specialised training needs and highly variable customer flows.

This business variability can be borne by the employer with the worker on regular hours but paid less. The alternative is the employee shares this risk with a wage premium for their troubles.

Workers with low fixed costs of working at different times profit from a move onto zero-hours contracts. Those with higher fixed costs of changing their working hours will stay on lower hourly rates but more certain working times

To summarise my points today:

  1. workers sign zero hours contracts because they are to their advantage to do so;

  2. Advance notice of working hours is not as common as people think for shift workers; and

  3. Irregular and unusual working arrangements usually command a wage premium.

Employers must pay a wage premium to induce in workers to sign zero hours contracts. This Bill undermines the right of workers to seek those higher wages. Thanks for your time and attention.

New Zealand gender wage gap for full-time workers and for part-time workers, 2015

10 Nov 2015 Leave a comment

by Jim Rose in discrimination, gender, labour economics, labour supply, occupational choice, politics - New Zealand Tags: , ,

The unadjusted gender wage gap is regarded as a reliable measure of sex discrimination in these day, apparently, because the adjusted wage gap is too small to maintain the rage. In the data below, the gender wage gap is in favour of women. That is an unreliable unadjusted gender wage because many part-time male workers are teenagers. Many part-time female workers are professionals.

image

Source: Statistics New Zealand, New Zealand Income Survey, June quarter 2015

@NZGreens is the gender pay gap 6.6%, 11.8% or 14%?

10 Nov 2015 Leave a comment

by Jim Rose in discrimination, gender, human capital, labour economics, occupational choice, politics - New Zealand Tags: , , , ,

Source: Statistics New Zealand: New Zealand Income Survey.

Source: Gender pay gap | Ministry for Women.

The unadjusted gender pay gap has been in a long-term decline for generations. The unadjusted gender wage gap in 2015 is 11.8% as shown in the above chart and in the second New Zealand Green’s Facebook link above but not first of their Facebook links above where it is claimed to be 14%.

To sex-up their numbers, the Labour Party and Greens used the gap between the average wages of men and women. This was rather than the median wage to make their gender wage gap comparisons despite the pious commitment of the Greens to use median wage in their gender wage gap calculations in the recent past.

The unadjusted gender pay gap has all but disappeared at the bottom of the labour market as the chart below shows. The gender wage gap remains stubbornly high at the high end of the wage market at 20% because of compensating differentials. Professional women are balancing families and careers in choosing the occupations that best suits each individual woman.

Source: OECD Employment Database.

Unions – not the cause of our 40 hour workweek

10 Nov 2015 Leave a comment

by Jim Rose in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, economic history, entrepreneurship, health and safety, human capital, industrial organisation, labour economics, labour supply, Marxist economics, minimum wage, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA, poverty and inequality, unions Tags: , ,

I am not responsible for the ads on my blog

09 Nov 2015 Leave a comment

Image by Jim Rose

When did buying your own home become an investment in New Zealand?

09 Nov 2015 Leave a comment

by Jim Rose in economics of regulation, politics - New Zealand, Public Choice, rentseeking, urban economics

Buying a house became an investment in New Zealand coincidently with the passing of the Resource Management Act and all the restrictions on land supply it empowered. Prior to then buy a house was a good idea except if you want to make money because real housing prices in 1993 were the same as in the mid-70s.

Source and notes: Dallas Fed International Housing Database July 2015 – The author acknowledge use of the dataset described in Mack and Martínez-García (2011); real housing prices are nominal housing prices deflated by a personal consumption deflator.

Housing prices rose by 50% in the first few years after the passage of the Resource Management Act. Housing prices doubled again in the last five years of the last Labour Government in New Zealand. With the economic recovery, housing prices increased again by 30% in the last four years or so.

The housing prices charted in deflated above are nationwide figures originally from nationwide nominal data published by the Reserve Bank of New Zealand and Quotable Value. They do not show the even faster growth in housing prices in, example, Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch and stagnant housing prices in declining regions, cities and towns of New Zealand.

Did @MaxRashbrooke make his case for wealth and inheritance taxes?

08 Nov 2015 2 Comments

by Jim Rose in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, politics - New Zealand, public economics

Veteran left-wing grumbler Max Rashbrooke yesterday argued for a wealth tax and inheritance taxes in New Zealand because of a widening wealth gap. He wants to tax inheritances of more than a mere $200,000 over your lifetime!

Yeah, I mean, we really are an international outlier in the sense that we don’t really tax wealth in any form. We don’t tax capital gains except now in very limited circumstances. We don’t tax inheritances. We don’t tax gifts. We don’t tax wealth in general, and this is a complicated area. In a lot of countries inheritance taxes are falling out of fashion. They get called death taxes and that kind of thing. But in response to that, what a lot of people are talking about are things like kind of a lifetime capital receipts tax. So rather than taxing the giver, you tax the recipient, and you say, ‘Look, over your lifetime, you can inherit, say, $200,000 tax free,’ so that your parents can pass on a bit to you.

That means an inheritance tax on the family home given current house prices in Auckland and Wellington and small families. I can’t see the Labour Party or even the Greens following him in on that one if they want to win office ever again.

Did Rashbrooke make a case for a widening wealth gap by looking at a 2004 survey of income and wealth?

Currently, the most recent publicly available information on wealth inequality in New Zealand comes from the 2004 round of the Survey of Family, Income and Employment, known as Sofie… Because wealthy people often refuse to take part in surveys such as Sofie, such data tends to underestimate how much of the pie is owned by the wealthiest people and overstate the share of everyone else. But it is still the best data we have.

Rashbrooke used this 2004 survey to draw a number of conclusions about the distribution of wealth in New Zealand:

The wealthiest tenth of individuals (including that wealthiest one per cent) had 52 per cent of all assets. In contrast, the poorest half of the country had just five per cent of all wealth. Some 190,000 people had negative net worth (more debts than assets), owing $4.7 billion between them.

Did Rashbrooke make his case that there is 52% of all assets in New Zealand are held by the wealthiest 10%? He did not because his definition wealth is too incomplete. Because of that, his focus on inheritance taxes and wealth taxes as solutions are equally poorly made. Any definition of wealth including that by Rashbrooke that doesn’t include human capital or acknowledge the limitations of not including human capital isn’t worth serious attention in public policy circles.

Source: Gary Becker, ‘Give Us Your Skilled Masses’ (2005).

Rashbrooke ignores 70% of the capital, the wealth in any economy. Gary Becker’s estimate that human capital is 70% of all capital in the US economy travels well to New Zealand as shown in the chart below.

Source: Lˆe Thi. Vˆan Tr`ınh, Estimating the monetary value of the stock of human capital for New Zealand, University of Canterbury PhD thesis (September 2006), Table 4.8: Human and physical capital stocks.

Over 70% of all capital in New Zealand is human capital. That cannot be ignored in any discussion of a widening wealth gap or in a case for inheritance and wealth taxes.

Dollar value estimates were available to Rashbrooke of human and physical capital of the same vintage as his wealth data from an excellent New Zealand PhD thesis by Lˆe Thi. Vˆan Tr`ınh. Her estimates of the aggregate dollar value of New Zealand physical and human capital are charted below. These estimates show that physical capital doubled between 1981 and 2001 but New Zealand human capital quadrupled.

Source: Lˆe Thi. Vˆan Tr`ınh, Estimating the monetary value of the stock of human capital for New Zealand, University of Canterbury PhD thesis (September 2006), Table 4.8: Human and physical capital stocks.

The rich are clearly not getting richer and the poor getting poorer and some people have no wealth at all. Human capital is the dominant form of capital in New Zealand and is growing rapidly. Any discussion of wealth does not include estimates of human capital or acknowledge the limitations of not having those estimates, which are easily available, should not be considered in public policy debates on inequality.


Source: Lˆe Thi. Vˆan Tr`ınh, Estimating the monetary value of the stock of human capital for New Zealand, University of Canterbury PhD thesis (September 2006).

The only group in New Zealand that doesn’t have more human capital in 2001 than in 1981 were the unskilled as the chart above shows. This was because their numbers dropped by one-third as a share of the working age population.

Source: Lˆe Thi. Vˆan Tr`ınh, Estimating the monetary value of the stock of human capital for New Zealand, University of Canterbury PhD thesis (September 2006), table 3.1.

I don’t think a solution to skills gaps is to increases taxes on those who investing in human capital. But that is the logic of Rashbrooke. When someone gets ahead, drag them back down rather than lift everybody up.

The reason for the lack of growth in the dollar value of unskilled human capital is the massive increase in investment in higher education in New Zealand. More New Zealanders go to university, Polytech or other diploma education. Working class New Zealanders are taking the advice of that unrepentant Stalinist but brilliant screenwriter Dalton Trumbo.

What is most disappointing is the unrepentant lack of gender analysis in the writings of Max Rashbrooke on inequality and wealth. Without a gender analysis, no discussion of wealth and inequality in New Zealand has any meaning.

Few labour market statistics have any meaning unless broken down by gender. Whenever you don’t see statistics with a gender breakdown, the first question for any sort of credible audience is “Gender analysis! Gender analysis! Where is your gender analysis?”

Max Rashbrooke inadvertently illustrated the meaningless of statistics that don’t have a gender analysis when griping recently about poverty and inequality in New Zealand as compared to the good old days before the economic reforms of the 1980s.

To paint pre-1984 New Zealand, pre-neoliberal New Zealand as an egalitarian paradise, Rashbrooke had to ignore two thirds of the population. He brushed over the inequalities they suffered in the heavily regulated, heavily taxed economy so looked upon with dewy eyes by the left of politics:

“New Zealand up until the 1980s was fairly egalitarian, apart from Maori and women, our increasing income gap started in the late 1980s and early 1990s,” says Rashbrooke. “These young club members are the first generation to grow up in a New Zealand really starkly divided by income”.

Racism and patriarchy can sit comfortably with a fairly egalitarian society if you are to believe a leading spokesman of the Left. I disagree as would John Rawls with this boy’s own view of trends in New Zealand inequality. Boy’s own because trends in gender inequality are not discussed. No weight is given to the closing of the gender pay gap, a massive increase in female employment and women out-numbering male university new graduates for well over a decade.

Perry (2014) reviews the poverty and inequality data in New Zealand every year for the Ministry of Social Development. He concluded that:

Overall, there is no evidence of any sustained rise or fall in inequality in the last two decades. The level of household disposable income inequality in New Zealand is a little above the OECD median. The share of total income received by the top 1% of individuals is at the low end of the OECD rankings.

As there is no evidence of any sustained rise or fall on inequality New Zealand for the last 20 years, the case for inheritance and wealth taxes simply doesn’t get out of the box.

Source: OECD Employment Database.

That case for inheritance and wealth taxes by Max Rashbrooke doesn’t deserve to get into the box to go under starter’s orders if that analysis doesn’t include an analysis of human capital and a gender analysis. For example, male human capital increased by 31% in New Zealand between 1981 and 2001. Over the same period, female human capital increased by 112%. This not insignificant achievement in gender empowerment by capitalism and freedom bears celebration in any discussion of inequality.

Source: Lˆe Thi. Vˆan Tr`ınh, Estimating the monetary value of the stock of human capital for New Zealand, University of Canterbury PhD thesis (September 2006).

The only group of women for whom the gender pay gap has not all but disappeared over the last 30 years are the top 10% of women. This is the very group that Max Rashbrooke wants to tax heavily to prevent them accumulating and inheriting wealth.

The reason for those taxes on wealth and inheritances on successful women in the professions and business is growth in inequality but there is little to no evidence of that in New Zealand for at least 20 years.

The case of wealth and inheritance taxes as a way of coping with inequality is just not keeping up with recent trends in superstar wealth. New Zealand top 1% is lazy when compared to their more entrepreneurial American brothers.

Source: The World Top Incomes Database.

Our local top 1% earns the same share of total income as 30 years ago or even 60 years ago. Any growth in wealth gaps in New Zealand isn’t showing up in top incomes shares.

Source: The World Top Incomes Database.

As for overseas, Piketty and Saez (2003) concluded that a substantial fraction of the rise in top incomes was due to surging top wage incomes. These world-renowned social economists concluded that top executives (the ‘working rich‘) replaced top capital owners (the ‘rentiers’) at the top of the income hierarchy in the USA and Canada. The largest portion of the top incomes comes from earning wages. Top wage earners work for their living founding, building and/or directing successful businesses.

@PhilTwyford fantastic @nzlabour policy breakthrough on housing affordability

08 Nov 2015 Leave a comment

by Jim Rose in applied price theory, economics of regulation, fiscal policy, politics - New Zealand, urban economics Tags: , , , ,

Labour yesterday announced an excellent policy on housing affordability. The reforms proposed by Labour stress increasing the supply of land and improvements to local government finances surrounding infrastructure investments for new housing:

Labour will free up density and height controls to allow more medium density housing and reform the use of urban growth boundaries so they don’t drive up section costs. This will curb land bankers and speculators.

Labour has struck at the heart of two major constraints on urban land supply New Zealand: restrictions on density and height of new developments, and much more importantly, the use of urban growth boundaries to drive up land prices. These proposed regulatory reforms could not be more welcome.

The other shoe of Labour’s housing affordability reform proposals is improving the incentives for local councils to support new housing developments:

The other new element is changing the way we fund infrastructure for new developments. Currently those costs are either subsidised by the ratepayer or passed by the developer onto the price tag of a new home. That makes houses much more expensive. It also means they are paid off through mortgages at expensive bank interest rates.

Our new policy will see infrastructure funded by local government bonds, paid off over the lifetime of the asset through a targeted rate on the properties in the new development. This will substantially reduce the cost of new housing.

The reforms proposed by Labour to local government financing will reduce the financial burden on existing ratepayers of the local government funded infrastructure necessary to support new land developments.

Source and notes: International House Price Database – Dallas Fed June 2015; nominal housing prices for each country is deflated by the personal consumption deflator for that country.

These Labour Party reforms are fantastic because the main party on the left-wing of New Zealand politics has faced up to restricted land supply as a key reason behind housing unaffordability. I wonder what the New Zealand Greens will think of these major new reforms.

Of course, nothing is perfect in the art of policy development. New Zealand Labour continue to want government to build 100,000 affordable houses and scapegoat foreigners for high housing prices.

A few more sensible economic and fiscal policy announcements such as those today by the New Zealand Labour Party and it will start looking like a credible alternative government.

 

Increase in real New Zealand household incomes since 1982 – before and after housing costs

07 Nov 2015 Leave a comment

by Jim Rose in economic history, politics - New Zealand Tags: , , ,

It is those below median household income that are suffering more from rising housing costs in New Zealand since 1982. Those on low incomes in particular have suffered the most.

image

Source: Bryan Perry, Household Incomes in New Zealand: trends in indicators of inequality and hardship 1982 to 2014 – Ministry of Social Development, Wellington (August 2015), Tables D3 and D4.

The data for the lowest decile is somewhat unreliable because there are so many implausibly low and zero incomes in that decile.

$1/2 billion in customs duties still collected in New Zealand!

06 Nov 2015 Leave a comment

by Jim Rose in international economics, politics - New Zealand

In the course of feuding with strangers on Twitter about how much tariff revenue is still collected in New Zealand, I discovered that the revenue from customs duties are less than I recall but more than most think. These customs duties are distinct from any GST collected at the border by New Zealand Customs.

Source: Tax Outturn Data — The Treasury – New Zealand.

Source: Import Tariff Levels After 2015 Cabinet Submission by Minister of Commerce.

There is a God! @AlboMP and @tanya_plibersek could lose their seats to Greens at the next election

06 Nov 2015 Leave a comment

by Jim Rose in election campaigns, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand

Source: Do it | Catallaxy Files.

Similar karma here. The deputy leader of the New Zealand Labour Party wins his seat because the Greens do not fight for it. The co-leader of the Greens happens to contest that seat. The Greens win or almost win the party vote in that electorate for several elections now.

End the separate and unequal New York public school system

05 Nov 2015 Leave a comment

by Jim Rose in economics of education, entrepreneurship, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA, unions

@JulieAnneGenter @jamespeshaw kill the case for electric cars @NZGreens

05 Nov 2015 1 Comment

by Jim Rose in applied price theory, energy economics, environmental economics, politics - New Zealand, transport economics

https://twitter.com/RadioLIVENZ/status/662064658203840512

In the course of calling for generous subsidies to electric cars, Greens co-leader James Shaw and transport spokesman Julie Anne Genter destroy the case for further public investment in electric cars and charging stations.

The Greens’ spokesmen refer to the biggest drawback of electric cars. Right now, it takes hours to recharge an electric vehicle. With generous investment by the long-suffering taxpayer, this recharging period will still be reduced to a still unacceptable 30 minutes.

Source: Business Tax Breaks for Clean Transport Options | Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand.

Recharging times for electric cars are much worse than I previously thought. They highlight how little progress has been made in solving that problem.

Range anxiety is the biggest drawback of the electric car unless you’re willing to buy a very expensive Tesla. Even with a Tesla, because of the amount of time it takes to recharge even when a short is 30 minutes, the effective range is much less than the maximum range.

The motorist will have to build a larger buffer into their range of their batteries because of the time it takes to recharge. It takes a couple of minutes to fill my tank. Half an hour out of my day is still unsatisfactory, much less the current hopeless several hours.

Rather than fill up when you near empty, the green motorist will have to recharge when say a quarter empty or even half empty. The buffer must be larger than for a conventional car because the motorist does not necessarily always have time spare in the day to fill up.

With a conventional car, you can fill up at any time. With an electric car, you must plan in your week to ensure you have that half hours spare when you won’t need your car, can retrieve it from the recharging station with convenience and anticipate no urgent use of the car will arise.

Source: Business Tax Breaks for Clean Transport Options | Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand.

In an quirk, the Greens want to increase electric car ownership by subsidising alternatives to car ownership for commuting purposes. People have fewer reasons to buy a car, much less an expensive sort of status symbol car, if they can commute for less because their employer gave them a free bus pass to take advantage of a fringe benefits tax concession.

Electric cars are a poor investment to begin with and what’s the point of shelling out all that cash if you don’t even drive it much? What more, electric buses are to be phased out in Wellington soon you will be commuting in a diesel bus to work courtesy of a free bus pass supported by the Greens.

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Peter Winsley

Economics, and such stuff as dreams are made on

A Venerable Puzzle

"The British constitution has always been puzzling, and always will be." --Queen Elizabeth II

The Antiplanner

Celebrating humanity's flourishing through the spread of capitalism and the rule of law

Bet On It

Celebrating humanity's flourishing through the spread of capitalism and the rule of law

History of Sorts

WORLD WAR II, MUSIC, HISTORY, HOLOCAUST

Roger Pielke Jr.

Undisciplined scholar, recovering academic

Offsetting Behaviour

Celebrating humanity's flourishing through the spread of capitalism and the rule of law

JONATHAN TURLEY

Res ipsa loquitur - The thing itself speaks

Conversable Economist

In Hume’s spirit, I will attempt to serve as an ambassador from my world of economics, and help in “finding topics of conversation fit for the entertainment of rational creatures.”

The Victorian Commons

Researching the House of Commons, 1832-1868

The History of Parliament

Articles and research from the History of Parliament Trust

Books & Boots

Reflections on books and art

Legal History Miscellany

Posts on the History of Law, Crime, and Justice

Sex, Drugs and Economics

Celebrating humanity's flourishing through the spread of capitalism and the rule of law

European Royal History

Exploring the Monarchs of Europe

Tallbloke's Talkshop

Cutting edge science you can dice with

Marginal REVOLUTION

Small Steps Toward A Much Better World

NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT

“We do not believe any group of men adequate enough or wise enough to operate without scrutiny or without criticism. We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it, that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. We know that in secrecy error undetected will flourish and subvert”. - J Robert Oppenheimer.

STOP THESE THINGS

The truth about the great wind power fraud - we're not here to debate the wind industry, we're here to destroy it.

Fruits and Votes

Lindsay Mitchell

Celebrating humanity's flourishing through the spread of capitalism and the rule of law

Alt-M

Celebrating humanity's flourishing through the spread of capitalism and the rule of law

croaking cassandra

Economics, public policy, monetary policy, financial regulation, with a New Zealand perspective

UK Constitutional Law Association

The Grumpy Economist

Celebrating humanity's flourishing through the spread of capitalism and the rule of law

International Liberty

Restraining Government in America and Around the World