Adrian Orr has resigned as Reserve Bank Governor. I normally try to highlight the good as well as the bad when someone resigns, but I have to admit in this case I struggle. I welcomed his appointment in 2017. I noted the currency rose on his appointment and that he had a very good legacy […]
Adrian Orr resigns
Adrian Orr resigns
05 Mar 2025 Leave a comment
in business cycles, economic history, economics of bureaucracy, fiscal policy, inflation targeting, labour economics, macroeconomics, monetary economics, politics - New Zealand, Public Choice, unemployment Tags: economics of pandemics, monetary policy
Australia’s Pandemic Exceptionalism
05 Mar 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, budget deficits, economic growth, economics of bureaucracy, economics of natural disasters, economics of regulation, health economics, labour economics, labour supply, macroeconomics, monetary economics, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, Public Choice, unemployment Tags: economics of pandemics
That’s the title of a 2024 book by a couple of Australian academic economists, Steven Hamilton (based in US) and Richard Holden (a professor at the University of New South Wales). The subtitle of the book is “How we crushed the curve but lost the race”. It is easy to get off on the wrong […]
Australia’s Pandemic Exceptionalism
GRAHAM ADAMS: John Tamihere and Te Pāti Māori are in a world of pain
05 Mar 2025 Leave a comment
in law and economics, liberalism, Marxist economics, politics - New Zealand, property rights Tags: constitutional law, free speech, political correctness, racial discrimination, regressive left
The government cutting Whānau Ora funding would be a crippling blow. For the longest time, it has been impossible to make Te Pāti Māori…
GRAHAM ADAMS: John Tamihere and Te Pāti Māori are in a world of pain
New Scientist: CO2 Emissions have Delayed the Next Glacial Period
04 Mar 2025 Leave a comment
in economic history, economics of climate change, environmental economics, environmentalism, global warming Tags: global cooling
“… We might even be currently living at what would have been the onset of this next glacial period …”
New Scientist: CO2 Emissions have Delayed the Next Glacial Period
UK Progressive Activists
04 Mar 2025 Leave a comment
in economics of education, liberalism, Marxist economics Tags: British politics, free speech, political correctness, regressive left
More in Common have done some fascinating research on “progressive activists” (what we might call woke activists) in the UK. They are only 8% to 10% of the UK population but dominate the media, the arts, the universities, the NGOs etc. The report divides people up into seven groups, being: Some key beliefs are: As […]
UK Progressive Activists
Our updated letter to the three ecology/evolution societies who claimed that sex was a spectrum
04 Mar 2025 Leave a comment
in economics of education, health economics, liberalism, Marxist economics, politics - USA Tags: conjecture and refutation, free speech, gender gap, philosophy of science, political correctness, regressive left, sex discrimination
As I wrote on February 13, three important societies representing evolutionary biology, ecology, and systematics issued a grossly misleading statement aimed at the government. (It is dated February 5, but I don’t think it’s yet been sent): As I reported recently, the Presidents of three organismal-biology societies, the Society for the Study of Evolution (SSE), […]
Our updated letter to the three ecology/evolution societies who claimed that sex was a spectrum
RODNEY HIDE: Fight! Fight! Fight!
04 Mar 2025 Leave a comment
in health economics, law and economics, liberalism, politics - New Zealand, transport economics Tags: economics of pandemics, free speech, political correctness, regressive left
It was shocking how the institutions we thought we could rely on crumbled like a stack of cards. The opposition, the media, the courts,…
RODNEY HIDE: Fight! Fight! Fight!
Reuters: The Renewable Energy Transition has Failed
04 Mar 2025 Leave a comment
in economics of climate change, economics of regulation, energy economics, environmental economics, environmentalism, global warming Tags: solar power, wind power
“… The failure of net zero shows that the best governments can do is to encourage the search for viable new sources of energy. …”
Reuters: The Renewable Energy Transition has Failed
15 years of US research on the minimum wage elasticity of employment
04 Mar 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, econometerics, economic history, economics of regulation, labour economics, labour supply, minimum wage, poverty and inequality
It’s time to pick up my recent thread of posts on the minimum wage (most recently in this post). I want to return for a moment to more conventional research on the minimum wage, specifically looking at the effects of higher minimum wages on employment. The majority of minimum wage research has focused on estimating…
15 years of US research on the minimum wage elasticity of employment
Alex Byrne on sex, the history of its definition, and assorted misconceptions
03 Mar 2025 Leave a comment
in discrimination, economics of education, gender, liberalism, Marxist economics, politics - USA Tags: free speech, gender gap, political correctness, regressive left, sex discrimination
I guess the number of papers and articles people send me about the definition of sex is one sign that it remains an important issue for the populace. Indeed, I think that in future decades people will see the kerfuffle about a simple and widely accepted definition (the gametic one) as a tempest in a […]
Alex Byrne on sex, the history of its definition, and assorted misconceptions
More Deficient Economic Thinking
03 Mar 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, industrial organisation, international economics Tags: current account, free trade, tarrifs
TweetHere’s a letter to the Wall Street Journal. Editor: Anthony deBarros and Peter Santilli report on “the countries fueling America’s $1.2 trillion goods trade deficit” (March 1). With respect, what’s the point of such a report? Eighty percent of U.S. GDP is produced by the service sector – implying that the vast majority of Americans…
More Deficient Economic Thinking
A misleading case of “trauma inherited across generations”
03 Mar 2025 Leave a comment
in defence economics, economics of education, health economics Tags: behavioural genetics
Here we have a new paper in Nature Scientific Reports, accompanied by a news piece in Science, that sends a misleading message to the public, both about “inheritance of trauma” and the effects of epigenetic changes. Both pieces are free to access; click on the first headline below to go to the news piece, and […]
A misleading case of “trauma inherited across generations”
The 2023 Merger Guidelines Will Remain: What Does That Mean?
03 Mar 2025 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economics of regulation, entrepreneurship, industrial organisation, politics - USA, survivor principle Tags: 2024 presidential election, competition law, merger law enforcement
Under current law, any US companies considering a merger or acquisition that is above $125 million in size must first report it to the government. The most recent data for 2023 says that 1,805 such transactions were reported in 2023, which was a relatively low number for recent years. In 2021 and 2022, for example,…
The 2023 Merger Guidelines Will Remain: What Does That Mean?
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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