There’s much to digest, the day after the counting of votes and an outcome which is subject to special votes being brought into account. For now, it is tempting to agree with David Farrar (who confesses it is unlike him to write an article which can be summed up in the headline Why National should do […]
The case for bringing Winston into a coalition agreement
The case for bringing Winston into a coalition agreement
15 Oct 2023 Leave a comment
Labour one of two election losers
15 Oct 2023 Leave a comment
Labour is a big time election loser, but is not the only one. Labour will now have to re-build, while it has two strong competitors on its left – The Greens and The Maori Party. Given Labour’s natural position as a major party, this is much more difficult than it is for the niche parties. […]
Labour one of two election losers
Deadly Routine On The Italian Front – The 8th Battle Of The Isonzo I THE…
14 Oct 2023 Leave a comment
in defence economics, war and peace Tags: World War I
“It is a paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high and tax revenues are too low…”
14 Oct 2023 Leave a comment
I gather that the National Party has run into some problems defending its tax proposals in the face of an unending attack not just from Labour but also our fair and balanced MSM. In light of that I put this post up as a suggestion as to how National might start to fight back, since […]
“It is a paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high and tax revenues are too low…”
Heterogeneous Agent Fiscal Theory
14 Oct 2023 Leave a comment
in budget deficits, business cycles, fiscal policy, macroeconomics, monetary economics

Today, I’ll add an entry to my occasional reviews of interesting academic papers. The paper: “Price Level and Inflation Dynamics in Heterogeneous Agent Economies,” by Greg Kaplan, Georgios Nikolakoudis and Gianluca Violante. One of the many reasons I am excited about this paper is that it unites fiscal theory of the price level with heterogeneous agent…
Heterogeneous Agent Fiscal Theory
An Evening With The Philosophical Muser #11: Discussion With Dr. David Friedman
14 Oct 2023 Leave a comment
in comparative institutional analysis, David Friedman, history of economic thought, law and economics, libertarianism, property rights
Losing Small Wars: British Military Failure in the 9/11 Wars by Frank Ledwidge, second edition (2017)
14 Oct 2023 Leave a comment
in defence economics, laws of war, war and peace Tags: Afghanistan, Iraq
‘You have the watches, but we have the time.’ (Taliban saying, possibly apocryphal, page 93) Summary This is a quite mind-blowing, jaw-dropping analysis of the incompetence, ignorance, narrow-mindedness, bad planning, profligacy, bureaucratic in-fighting, politicking, terrible leadership, lack of strategy, appalling mismanagement and ineptitude which characterised the British Army campaigns in Iraq (2003 to 2009) and […]
Losing Small Wars: British Military Failure in the 9/11 Wars by Frank Ledwidge, second edition (2017)
Some Links
13 Oct 2023 Leave a comment
TweetDavid Barker, writing in the Wall Street Journal – and appropriately praising my GMU Econ colleague Dan Klein’s remarkable journal, Econ Journal Watch – exposes just how very shoddy some eminent “scholarship” really is. Two slices: Climate change hurts the economy, according to a celebrated 2012 paper by economists Melissa Dell, Benjamin Jones and Benjamin…
Some Links
Alisher Suleymenov CRUSHES Magnus Carlsen! | Qatar Masters 2023
13 Oct 2023 Leave a comment
in chess
Kathryn Porter: The myth of affordable green energy is over
13 Oct 2023 Leave a comment
in energy economics, environmental economics, global warming Tags: celebrity technologies, wind power
By Paul Homewood The pervasive narrative about offshore wind in recent years has been that costs are falling and that wind power is cheap. But scratch below the surface and you find that things are not quite so rosy. Turbine manufacturers have been losing money hand over fist in recent years. Collectively over […]
Kathryn Porter: The myth of affordable green energy is over
One last pre-election fiscal post
13 Oct 2023 Leave a comment

A few weeks ago I wrote a post surveying the range of fiscal indicators (local ones and IMF/OECD metrics) to look at recent New Zealand fiscal policy across time and across countries. I included in that post this chart, which I had cobbled together using IMF April data for other countries and their estimates for […]
One last pre-election fiscal post
Israel has not formed a “unity government”
13 Oct 2023 Leave a comment
There is a headline in the Washing Post (in an entry in their live blog today) that says, “Netanyahu and Gantz form unity government.” This is misleading. No new government has been formed; therefore, there’s no unity government. All ministers of Bibi’s narrow right-wing/Haredi coalition remain in place. Benny Gantz and a couple others from […]
Israel has not formed a “unity government”
Claudia Golden wins Nobel Prize in Economics
13 Oct 2023 Leave a comment

For her work explaining Gender Gaps in wages and employment. From the Economist:Since around 2005 the wage gap has hardly budged. Here Ms Goldin’s work questions popular narratives that continue to blame wage discrimination. Instead, in a book published in 2021, Ms Goldin blames “greedy” jobs, such as being a consultant or lawyer, which offer…
Claudia Golden wins Nobel Prize in Economics
Productivity growth….or lack of it
13 Oct 2023 Leave a comment

Earlier in the week a journalist asked me for some thoughts on which political party in government had managed the economy better – in overall macroeconomic terms – over the years since we moved to MMP. My initial response was that the answer would be pretty dull. Pressed to write something anyway, I outlined briefly […]
Productivity growth….or lack of it

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