Trust in media chart, by ideology https://t.co/n9UrakFbaN pic.twitter.com/mFQD71tNZL
— Sara Kehaulani Goo (@sarakgoo) October 29, 2015
Trust in media by ideology
15 Nov 2015 Leave a comment
in economics of information, economics of media and culture, industrial organisation, politics - USA, Public Choice, survivor principle Tags: expressive voting, media bias, rational ignorance, rational irrationality, The meaning of competition
#GeorgeOrwell on @jeremycorbyn #pacifism and #Paris
14 Nov 2015 Leave a comment
in defence economics, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA, war and peace Tags: British politics, France, game theory, George Orwell, pacifism, Paris, war on terror
Employment status of sole parents in UK, USA, France, Italy, Australia, Ireland and New Zealand
13 Nov 2015 Leave a comment
in economics of love and marriage, labour supply, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA Tags: Australia, British economy, France, Ireland, Italy, maternal labour supply, single parents, sole parents, welfare state
Despite supposedly having stingy welfare states, both New Zealand and Australia have a lot of sole parents who do not work at all. There is no separate breakdown of full-time and part-time work status in the USA. About 72% of sole parents in the USA either work full-time or part-time.
Source: OECD Family Database.
@nzlabour @NZGreens what do @JohnKey #RonaldReagan have in common @AndrewLittleMP @metiria
13 Nov 2015 Leave a comment
Eurosclerosis illustrated in the labour market
13 Nov 2015 Leave a comment
in economic history, Euro crisis, labour economics, labour supply, macroeconomics, politics - USA, public economics Tags: employment law, Eurosclerosis, France, Germany, growth of government, labour market regulation, size of government, taxation and labour supply
Source: Linda Regber.
Do the European welfare states free ride off American entrepreneurship and innovation?
12 Nov 2015 1 Comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, comparative institutional analysis, constitutional political economy, economic history, economics of regulation, entrepreneurship, industrial organisation, politics - USA, public economics, survivor principle, taxation, technological progress Tags: creative destruction, Daron Acemoglu, Denmark, entrepreneurial alertness, Eurosclerosis, international technology diffusion, taxation and entrepreneurship, taxation and innovation, taxation and investment, taxation and labour supply, technology followers, welfare state
Source: Daron Acemoglu A Scandinavian U.S. Would Be a Problem for the Global Economy – NYTimes.com.
Why is the US equilibrium unemployment rate so stable as compared to Canada and the UK?
10 Nov 2015 2 Comments
in business cycles, economic history, macroeconomics, politics - USA, unemployment
The equilibrium unemployment rate in the USA has been dead flat at a little under 6% as far back as the OECD Economic Outlook November 2015 can estimate. The Canadian and British equilibrium unemployment rates have gone up and down to the point of near doubling at times. Institutions cannot be so stable in the USA and so unstable Canada and Britain in terms of the incentives to post vacancies, for search for work in the same in different industries and occupations and revise asking wages. We’re talking about a 35 year stretch macroeconomic and labour market policy in the USA.
Source: OECD Economic Outlook November 2015 Data extracted on 10 Nov 2015 07:07 UTC (GMT) from OECD.Stat.
Furthermore, there is a large literature in the early 1970s and late 1990s arguing that the US equilibrium unemployment rate dropped as low as 4%.
Source: Robert Shimer, Why is the U.S. Unemployment Rate So Much Lower? (1999).
More correctly, for the early 1970s literature, the equilibrium unemployment rate had risen to 4% after being at an equilibrium rate of about 3%. Something doesn’t add up.
Source: Robert Shimer, Why is the U.S. Unemployment Rate So Much Lower? (1999).
This estimate of an unchanging US equilibrium unemployment rate doesn’t add up even more when you consider the discussions after the Great Recession about how the extensions to unemployment insurance from a time limit of 26 weeks to 99 weeks would increase the equilibrium unemployment rate. Something really doesn’t add up for the US equilibrium unemployment rate to be so stable and the British and Canadian equilibrium unemployment rates to be so volatile.
Source: Robert Barro: The Folly of Subsidizing Unemployment – WSJ.
Unions – not the cause of our 40 hour workweek
10 Nov 2015 Leave a comment
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: The Great Enrichment, union power, union wage premium
Has Obama ‘elected more Republicans than any human being in history’?
08 Nov 2015 Leave a comment
in politics - USA Tags: 2016 presidential election, congressional elections, Democratic Party, Republican Party
@CloserTogether @FairnessNZ nail case for neoliberalism @chrishipkins @Maori_Party
06 Nov 2015 Leave a comment
in econometerics, economic history, labour economics, labour supply, minimum wage, politics - USA, unions Tags: conspiracy theories, conspiracy theorists, Leftover Left, living standards, Maori economic development, neoliberalism, top 1%, Twitter left, union power, union wage premium
The Council of Trade Unions and Closer Together Whakatata Mai charted similar statistics to show that everything has gone to hell in a hand basket since neoliberalism seized power in New Zealand in 1984 and in particular after the passing of the Employment Contracts Act in 1991.
Source: Income Gap | New Zealand Council of Trade Unions – Te Kauae Kaimahi.
The passage of the Employment Contracts Act greatly reduced union power and union membership and with it wages growth in New Zealand, according to what is left of the New Zealand union movement.
Source: Income Gap | New Zealand Council of Trade Unions – Te Kauae Kaimahi.
Unfortunately, both charts of the same statistics show the exact opposite to what was intended by The Council of Trade Unions and Closer Together Whakatata Mai.
Even the most casual inspection of the data charted above and reproduced below with some annotations shows that real wages growth returned to New Zealand in the early 1990s after 20 years of real wage stagnation.
Source: Income Gap | New Zealand Council of Trade Unions – Te Kauae Kaimahi.
The reforms of the 1980s stopped what was a long-term decline in average real wages. The reforms of the early 1990s including the passing of the Employment Contracts Act was followed by the resumption of sustained growth in average real wages with little interruption since.
Closer Together Whakatata Mai has even stumbled onto the great improvements in household incomes across all ethnicities since the early 1990s.
The increase in percentage terms of Maori and Pasifika real household income is much larger than for Pakeha. As Bryan Perry (2015, p. 67) explains when commenting on the very table D6 sourced by Closer Together Whakatata Mai:
From a longer-term perspective, all groups showed a strong rise from the low point in the mid 1990s through to 2010. In real terms, overall median household income rose 47% from 1994 to 2010: for Maori, the rise was even stronger at 68%, and for Pacific, 77%. These findings for longer- term trends are robust, even though some year on year changes may be less certain. For 2004 to 2010, the respective growth figures were 21%, 31% and 14%.
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), Table D6.
As Closer Together Whakatata Mai documented, incomes increased in real terms by 14% for the bottom and 19% for the middle.
Perry noted that in the lowest decile had too many implausible incomes including many on zero income so he was wary of relying on it. I have therefore charted the second, median and top decile before and after housing costs below. All three deciles charted showed substantial improvements in incomes both before and after housing costs.
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).
Naturally, measuring changes in living standards over long periods of time is fraught with under-estimation. There are new goods to be accounted for and product upgrades too.
The apps in your smartphone cost $900,000 thirty years ago —@datarade https://t.co/pjw7q4QGDp—
Vala Afshar (@ValaAfshar) October 29, 2015
Hauser’s Law
06 Nov 2015 Leave a comment
in economic history, politics - USA, public economics Tags: growth of government
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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