Source: Paul Krugman (1997) Unmitigated Gauls.
@mattyglesias on why greedy drug companies are heroes
20 Mar 2016 Leave a comment
in economics of regulation, health economics, law and economics, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA, property rights Tags: avoiding difficult choices, drug lags, generic drugs, intellectual monopolies, invisible graveyard, patents and copyrights
Just exactly how big is @grantrobertson1’s great big new tax?
20 Mar 2016 1 Comment
in labour economics, labour supply, politics - USA, poverty and inequality, welfare reform Tags: Director's Law, universal basic income
https://twitter.com/grantrobertson1/status/711303279284629505
Gareth Morgan’s universal basic income, by his own calculations, make well-to-do people better off and the poor and old age pensioners worse off at the cost of $12 billion tax rise. The Labour Party has now adopted this policy as worth considering.
Source: Gareth Morgan Presentation Slide 20 of 27 | Big Kahuna Book.
Source: Gareth Morgan Presentation Slide 20 of 27 | Big Kahuna Book.
Remembering @JeremyCorbyn’s good old days
20 Mar 2016 Leave a comment
in economic history, politics - USA, urban economics Tags: British economy, British politics, pessimism bias, The Great Enrichment
How is the gender pay gap going in the USA since 1980, adjusted and unadjusted?
19 Mar 2016 Leave a comment
in discrimination, gender, human capital, labour economics, labour supply, occupational choice, politics - USA Tags: compensating differentials, gender wage gap
Source: The Gender Wage Gap: Extent, Trends, and Explanations by Francine D. Blau, Lawrence M. Kahn :: SSRN
Tax mix in the USA as a percentage of GDP since 1965
18 Mar 2016 Leave a comment
in business cycles, economic history, fiscal policy, great recession, macroeconomics, politics - USA, public economics Tags: company tax, company tax rate, growth of government, GST, indirect taxation, property taxes, size of government, Social Security contributions, taxation and investment, taxation and labour supply, welfare state
The only major change in the US tax mix in the last 50 years has been greater reliance on social security contributions.
Source: OECD Stat.
The share going to income taxes bobbing up and down quite a lot in the last 30 years much of that to do with the business cycle. In the 1990s, the share of taxes from personal income increased during boom times. In the Great Recession, the tax share to income tax rose with the declining economy as did that on corporate profits.
@BernieSanders lies more often than @HillaryClinton
16 Mar 2016 Leave a comment
in economics of media and culture, politics - USA
The presidential scorecards so far @realdonaldtrump
16 Mar 2016 Leave a comment
in economics of media and culture, politics - USA
% of New Zealand mortgages that were fixed and floating since 2004
16 Mar 2016 Leave a comment
in economic history, economics of information, economics of regulation, monetary economics, politics - USA Tags: antimarket bias, libertarian paternalism, monetary policy, mortgage interest rates, New Zealand Labour Party, Other people are stupid fallacy, rational irrationality, The fatal conceit, The pretence to knowledge
Despite the best efforts of the libertarian paternalists to sell the other people are stupid fallacy, ordinary New Zealanders are quite nimble at moving between fixed and floating rates depending upon their forecasts of the future of interest rates. Price controls on floating rate mortgages, as suggested by the New Zealand Labour Party, would make this more difficult, not easier.
Source: S8 Banks: Mortgage lending ($m) – Reserve Bank of New Zealand.
New Zealand Post (incl. Kiwibank) dividends
15 Mar 2016 Leave a comment
in industrial organisation, monetary economics, politics - USA, public economics Tags: economics of banking, government ownership, KiwiBank, network industries, New Zealand Greens, New Zealand Post, rational irrationality, state owned enterprises
Source: New Zealand Treasury – data released under the Official Information Act.
Tax burdens of the top 10% across the OECD
14 Mar 2016 Leave a comment
in politics - New Zealand, politics - USA, public economics Tags: taxation and entrepreneurship, taxation and investment, taxation and labour supply, top 1%
@BernieSanders defence of #Castro did not help spread democracy
14 Mar 2016 Leave a comment
in constitutional political economy, economic history, Marxist economics, politics - USA
Dodging the #Trump Bullet: @zingales (2011) on @realdonaldtrump’s previous run for president
14 Mar 2016 Leave a comment
in economics of media and culture, politics - USA, Public Choice, rentseeking
Read what Zingales wrote five years ago on City Journal that was part of what was cut out of his book “A Capitalism for the People” because Donald Trump running seriously for president was never supposed to happen.
Source: Dodging the Trump Bullet | City Journal.
Zingales is no kinder in his recent op-ed recalling the lost book chapter, which is paywalled.
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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