Some demographics of the anti-vaccination movement
03 Feb 2015 Leave a comment
in health economics, politics - USA Tags: anti-vaccination movement, The Great Escape, vaccinations, vaccines
Australia is number 9 in taxing investment income – corrected
03 Feb 2015 Leave a comment
in politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA, Public Choice, public economics Tags: capital gains tax, company tax, efficient taxes, optimal taxes
Infographic: The Anti-Science Climate Denier Caucus, 114th Congress Edition | ThinkProgress
03 Feb 2015 Leave a comment
in environmental economics, global warming, politics - USA Tags: 2014 congressional elections, climate alarmism, climate scepticism
Irrespective of whether you look upon climate sceptics as sceptics or heretics to be driven from the temple, this is a great graph of Who’s Who in Congress on climate alarmism.
Via Infographic: The Anti-Science Climate Denier Caucus, 114th Congress Edition | ThinkProgress.
Why Senator Elizabeth Warren supported school choice and school vouchers
02 Feb 2015 Leave a comment
in economics of education, entrepreneurship, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA Tags: capitalism and freedom, Elizabeth Warren, School choice, The meaning of competition, vouchers
It is not a coincidence that Warren’s support for school choice dropped through the floor once she decided to run for public office as a Democrat. In spite of large cash infusions from wealthy environmentalists and trial lawyers, teacher unions remain the party’s largest and most influential donor base.
…In recent years, Warren has bent over backwards to qualify what she “really meant” by school choice.
In a rather astonishing reinterpretation of her own work, it turns out she never supported vouchers for religious school or even for non-sectarian private schools, just the ability to go to a public school in an adjacent district.
The 13th Amendment to abolish slavery was passed by Congress today, 1865
01 Feb 2015 Leave a comment
Who is running for president, now that Romney is out
01 Feb 2015 Leave a comment
in politics - USA Tags: 2016 US presidential election
Why Can’t Public Transit Be Free? – The Atlantic
01 Feb 2015 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA, transport economics Tags: activists, do gooders, free public transport, The fatal conceit, The pretence to knowledge
The earliest urban experiment in free public transit took place in Rome in the early 1970s. The city, plagued by unbearable traffic congestion, tried making its public buses free.
At first, many passengers were confused: “There must be a trick,” a 62-year-old Roman carpenter told The New York Times as he boarded one bus. Then riders grew irritable. One “woman commuter” predicted that “swarms of kids and mixed-up people will ride around all day just because it doesn’t cost anything.”
Romans couldn’t be bothered to ditch their cars—the buses were only half-full during the mid-day rush hour, “when hundreds of thousands battle their way home for a plate of spaghetti.” Six months after the failed, costly experiment, a cash-strapped Rome reinstated its fare system.
Three similar experiments in the U.S.—in Denver, Colorado, and Trenton, New Jersey, in the late 70s, and in Austin, Texas, around 1990—also proved unfruitful and shaped the way American policy makers viewed the question of free public transit.
All three were attempts to coax commuters out of their cars and onto subway platforms and buses. While they succeeded in increasing ridership, the new riders they brought in were people who were already walking or biking to work. For that reason, they were seen as failures.
A 2002 report released by the National Center for Transportation Research indicated that the lack of fares attracted hordes of young people, who brought with them a culture of vandalism, graffiti, and bad behavior—which all necessitated costly maintenance. The lure of “free,” the report implied, attracted the “wrong” crowd—the “right” crowd, of course, being wealthier people with cars, who aren’t very sensitive to price changes.
HT: http://m.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/01/why-cant-public-transit-be-free/384929/
Deflation and Depression: Is There an Empirical Link?
31 Jan 2015 Leave a comment
in budget deficits, business cycles, economic growth, Euro crisis, great depression, great recession, macroeconomics, monetary economics, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA Tags: deflation, fiscal policy, liquidity traps, monetary policy, stabilisation policy
Deflation has a bad reputation. People blame deflation for causing the great depression in the 1930s. What worse reputation can you get as a self-respecting macroeconomic phenomena?
The inconvenient truth for this urban legend is empirical evidence of deflation leading to a depression is rather weak.
The most obvious is confounding evidence, is up until the great depression, deflation was commonplace. In the late 19th century, deflation coincided with strong growth, growth so strong that it was called the Industrial Revolution.
For deflation to be a depressing force, something must have happened in the lead up to the Great Depression to change the impact of deflation on economic growth.
Atkeson and Kehoe in the AER looked into the relationship between deflation and depressions and came up empty-handed.
Deflation and depression do seem to have been linked during the 1930s. But in the rest of the data for 17 countries and more than 100 years, there is virtually no evidence of such a link.
Deflation and Depression: Is There an Empirical Link?
Andrew Atkeson, and Patrick J. Kehoe, 2004.
Are deflation and depression empirically linked? No, concludes a broad historical study of inflation and real output growth rates. Deflation and depression do seem to have been linked during the 1930s. But in the rest of the data for 17 countries and more than 100 years, there is virtually no evidence of such a link.
View original post 1,842 more words
The middle class has been shrinking for half a century because…
31 Jan 2015 Leave a comment
in applied welfare economics, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA Tags: middle class stagnation, poverty and inequality
The New York Times passed over as quickly as it could the fact that up until the year 2000 the middle class was shrinking because more of them are moving into the upper middle class and the rich.
Recent Comments