Baby boom
06 Dec 2019 Leave a comment
June 1958 – September 1962
Malthusianism does a pretty good job of capturing the facts of life for our species before the Industrial Revolution. For example, Malthus plus standard economics helps account for some of the historic differences between wheat and rice growing societies. And Darwinism suggests the reason why Malthusianism holds for living things in general: within a population, variants with a higher intrinsic rate of increase tends to replace those with a lower rate, even if the eventual outcome is overpopulation and misery for all. So the field of human behavioral ecology, based on the assumption that people try to maximize fitness, does pretty well in accounting for behavior in pre-modern societies.
But Malthusianism, and the assumption that people are fitness-maximizers, don’t work very well for modern societies. Even as life expectancies and standards of living have been increasing around the world, fertility rates have been declining…
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If you assume policy is powerful, you can justify almost anything
06 Dec 2019 Leave a comment
So, what to make of the Governor’s final decisions on bank capital?
If you are a bank or bank shareholder, you are presumably just grateful for small mercies, the modest extent to which the Governor changed his mind and allowed the banks to use cheaper forms of capital to meet the new requirements. Consistent with that, the share prices of the parent banks recovered some ground yesterday.
Since banks are scared of their regulators and – both here and in Australia – are very reluctant to seek judicial review, despite the very strong sense of pre-determination about this process, and the evident failure to engage seriously with substantive concerns raised by submitters, there isn’t much else they can do. Their behaviour – willingness to provide credit into this economy – can, and probably will, adjust. But if they won’t, or can’t, do anything more about the policy decision, grizzling…
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Scott Freeman versus Milton Friedman
06 Dec 2019 Leave a comment
in business cycles, econometerics, macroeconomics, Milton Friedman, monetarism, monetary economics
Risks and benefits of modern financial technology: Lessons from a 17th century stablecoin
06 Dec 2019 Leave a comment
Interesting example of 100% reserve banking winning in competition
Nice speech by Klaas Knot of Netherlands central bank.
He points how Bank of Amsterdam was doing similar things as today’s proposals for stablecoin:
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Are market studies informative?
06 Dec 2019 Leave a comment
in econometerics, economic history, economics of regulation, entrepreneurship, financial economics, industrial organisation, law and economics, Sam Peltzman, survivor principle Tags: competition law
.@ProfDBernstein on religion versus antidiscrimination laws
06 Dec 2019 Leave a comment
in discrimination, economics of religion, law and economics, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA Tags: Freedom of religion, political correctness, regressive left
Rod Stewart – I Don’t Want To Talk About It (from One Night Only! Live at Royal Albert Hall)
06 Dec 2019 Leave a comment
in Music
Boris Johnson’s Big Gamble: A Winning Strategy for Brexit? | @WSJ
06 Dec 2019 Leave a comment
in international economics, International law, Public Choice Tags: Brexit
BBC News misrepresents French parliament resolution
05 Dec 2019 Leave a comment
On December 4th a report titled “France anti-Semitism: Jewish graves defaced with Nazi swastikas” was published on the ‘Europe’ page of the BBC News website.
Towards the end of that report – throughout which the BBC once again used the wrong spelling of the word antisemitism – readers were told that: [emphasis added]
“On Tuesday night, France’s National Assembly passed a draft resolution that includes hatred of Israel as an example of anti-Semitism.
The definition, by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, has already been adopted by the European Parliament and several other countries.
A number of MPs from President Emmanuel Macron’s ruling party voted against the resolution.”
The IHRA definition of course does not include “hatred of Israel” as an example of antisemitism. It does include the following:
- Accusing the Jews as a people, or Israel as a state, of inventing or exaggerating the Holocaust.
- Accusing the Jews as a people, or Israel as a state, of inventing or exaggerating the Holocaust.
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David Friedman: Arguments Libertarians Shouldn’t Make
05 Dec 2019 Leave a comment
in David Friedman, economics of crime, energy economics, environmental economics, global warming, law and economics, liberalism, libertarianism, property rights Tags: climate alarmists
Climate change explained: do green policies harm developing economies? | @FT
05 Dec 2019 Leave a comment
in applied welfare economics, development economics, economic history, energy economics, environmental economics, global warming, growth disasters, growth miracles Tags: climate alarmists
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