Hsieh and Moretti on Allocations across Cities
23 Jan 2015 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, economics of regulation, geography, law and economics, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA, rentseeking, urban economics Tags: agglomeration, green rent seeking, land supply, zoning
the implied cost of housing restrictions across the whole U.S., and Chang and Enrico find that aggregate output is lower by about 10-14% because of them.
Last post on the NBER growth session. Chang-Tai Hsieh (Chicago) and Enrico Moretti (Berkeley) presented a paper on wage dispersion across cities in the U.S. Wage dispersion (New Yorkers earn more than people in Cleveland) either represents compensation for living costs (housing in New York is more expensive than in Cleveland), a real difference in productivity (New Yorkers are more productive than Clevelanders), or some combination of the two.
What Chang and Enrico find is that the increase in wage dispersion across cities in the U.S. over the last thirty-ish years is due almost entirely to rising house prices in six cities: NY, DC, Boston, San Fran, San Jose, and Seattle. Wages have gone up rapidly in those cities, but that is basically just compensating their citizens for the higher costs of living.
Now, given the costs of living, the allocation of population across cities in the U.S. is…
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One measure of political polarisation in America
23 Jan 2015 Leave a comment
in liberalism, politics - USA Tags: bipartisanship, political polarisation
Hayek on why he got his key prediction right in the Road to Serfdom
23 Jan 2015 1 Comment
in Austrian economics, constitutional political economy, F.A. Hayek, liberalism, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA Tags: Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC), Monday Conference, Road to Serfdom
This summary by Hayek of the contemporary meaning of socialism in the 1930s and 1940s was relatively accurate.
You must remember that clause 4 of the British Labour Party’s manifesto committing that party to the socialisation of the means of production, distribution and exchange was only dropped relatively recently at the impetus of Tony Blair.
The Australian Labor Party still includes the socialisation of the means of production, distribution and exchange as one of its objectives.
There were stronger divisions in the inter-war labour parties in Britain, Australia and New Zealand about whether the party should be committed to full socialism, Christian socialism or social democracy. It has been forgotten that the labour parties of Britain, Australia and New Zealand had many fall on the socialists within that party.
The Labour Party of Michael Foot in the 1983 British general election ran on a hard left manifesto, with Tony Benn and the Trotskyist entryist group Militant Tendency, which had several MPs, wanting a full socialist agenda in 1980s Britain.
Global warming has little impact on agricultural production, even in the 2080s
23 Jan 2015 Leave a comment
in experimental economics, politics - USA Tags: climate alarmism, global warming
HT: https://twitter.com/BjornLomborg/status/514432333756514305?s=09
Gender pay gap: do women earn 77% of what men do?
22 Jan 2015 Leave a comment
in discrimination, economics of love and marriage, gender, human capital, labour economics, labour supply, occupational choice, politics - USA Tags: employer discrimination, gender wage gap, sex discrimination
The World is Getting Richer…& Much More Equal
20 Jan 2015 Leave a comment
in applied welfare economics, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA Tags: Leftover Left, Oxfam, Thomas Piketty
Denying Problems When We Don’t Like the Solutions
20 Jan 2015 Leave a comment
in applied welfare economics, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA, Public Choice Tags: advocacy bias, anti-capitalist mentality, Anti-Economics Left, Anti-Science left, expressive voting
There is often a curious distinction between what the scientific community and the general population believe to be true of dire scientific issues, and this skepticism tends to vary markedly across groups.
…What causes such radical group differences? We suggest, as have previous accounts, that this phenomenon is often motivated.
However, the source of this motivation is not necessarily an aversion to the problem, per se, but an aversion to the solutions associated with the problem.
This difference in underlying process holds important implications for understanding, predicting, and influencing motivated skepticism.
In 4 studies, we tested this solution aversion explanation for why people are often so divided over evidence and why this divide often occurs so saliently across political party lines.
Studies 1, 2, and 3—using correlational and experimental methodologies—demonstrated that Republicans’ increased skepticism toward environmental sciences may be partly attributable to a conflict between specific ideological values and the most popularly discussed environmental solutions.
Study 4 found that, in a different domain (crime), those holding a more liberal ideology (support for gun control) also show skepticism motivated by solution aversion.
HT: http://today.duke.edu/2014/11/solutionaversion and http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/11/10/conservatives-dont-hate-climate-science-they-hate-the-lefts-climate-solutions/
One Year From The Iowa Caucus: What We Know | FiveThirtyEight
19 Jan 2015 Leave a comment
in politics - USA, TV shows Tags: 2016 presidential election
Why there are a wide partisan differences in the USA of the policy priorities
18 Jan 2015 Leave a comment
Cause Célèbre – Gender Split behind Celebrity Charity Work | Information Is Beautiful
18 Jan 2015 Leave a comment
in economics of media and culture, election campaigns, movies, Music, politics - USA, Public Choice, sports economics, televison, TV shows Tags: activists, Celebrities
HT: http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/2014/cause-celebre-gender-split-behind-celebrity-charity-work/
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