#OTD #COVID19 and masks
04 Aug 2021 Leave a comment
in health economics Tags: economics of pandemics
#OTD #COVID19
04 Aug 2021 Leave a comment
in applied welfare economics, comparative institutional analysis, health economics Tags: economics of pandemics
If Recycling Was Honest (BRAND-NEW HONEST ADS!)
04 Aug 2021 Leave a comment
in energy economics, environmental economics Tags: recycling
Cass Sunstein Simpler
03 Aug 2021 Leave a comment
in behavioural economics, economics of bureaucracy, economics of information, economics of regulation, industrial organisation, law and economics, Public Choice Tags: The fatal conceit
So, does France still need a new electoral system?
03 Aug 2021 Leave a comment
At the conclusion of the first round of voting for the French National Assembly, with projections showing a majority for newly elected President Nicolas Sarkozy’s UMP ranging from nearly two thirds to more than three fourth of the seats, I posed the question of whether France needed a new electoral system. With the party system fragmented, yet now dominated by two large and relatively moderate parties, the old majority-plurality two-round system no longer seemed to be serving the country well. When the electoral system was adopted in 1958 (and used for every election since then, except for 1986), there were no real “giants” in the fragmented party system and not even two clear blocs. One of the largest parties was a doctrinaire Communist party. In that context, a system that very quickly realigned the parties into two major blocs and led to the under-representation of the Communists was a…
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The attacks on seven eminent professors over a Listener letter in which they championed science have missed their target
03 Aug 2021 Leave a comment
Pre-modern cultures were knowledgeable of plants and animals; those that were not did not survive. The closest their cultures came to being scientific was tasting and cooking plants and animals to see if they were not poisonous.
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A letter in defence of science, published in The Listener last month, was signed by seven professors from the University of Auckland – Kendall Clements, Garth Cooper, Emeritus Professor Michael Corballis, Douglas Elliffe, Elizabeth Rata, Emeritus Professor Robert Nola, and Emeritus Professor John Werry.
Prominent scientists were among the critics of the letter-writers. But despite their disquiet, dismay or outrage, the critics have avoided stating that mātauranga Māori is scientific.
GRAHAM ADAMS asks why they are skirting the main issue.
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A distinctly curious feature of the backlash against the seven professors’ letter published in The Listener titled “In Defence of Science” is that none of its most prominent critics have actually defended mātauranga Māori (traditional Māori knowledge) as being scientific.
Yet the main point of the letter by the seven Auckland University professors — and the main point of contention for its critics — was summed up in…
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Can an individual large firm impact the U.S. business cycle?
03 Aug 2021 Leave a comment
15% is still large
Chen Yeh in this Richmond Fed economic brief:
Recent research has emphasized the importance of a few large firms in driving overall economic fluctuations, a view known as the “granular hypothesis.” I find that the granular hypothesis can explain about 15 percent of aggregate U.S. fluctuations, a smaller share than found in other research. Thus, the granular hypothesis plays a meaningful role for the U.S. economy, but there is still plenty of room for aggregate factors to be relevant.
15% is quite large.
California Could Lose Pork Products Due to New Pig Rules
03 Aug 2021 Leave a comment
Starting next year, Golden State residents are going to have a lot less pork options to eat resulting from a ballot initiative passed in 2018. According to the Associated Press, 2022 is when rules for a ballot proposition requiring more space for pigs, chickens who lay eggs, and veal calves.
While nationally-based pork food producers can meet the new requirements,the AP states only a fraction of hog operators are in compliance. Consequently, California not only stands to lose almost its entire pork supply most of which is shipped in from Iowa in which pork meat production costs stand to go very high. One farmer interviewed by the AP stated he would have to raise his pig selling prices an additional $20 in order to cover the costs.
With pork no longer available in California, it not only will hurt local restaurants and state supermarkets very hard, but porn prices…
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The elusiveness of divorce in medieval England: the marital troubles of the last Warenne earl of Surrey (d.1347)
03 Aug 2021 Leave a comment
In today’s blog Dr Simon Payling from our Commons 1461-1504 project continues our ongoing look into the marriages of Parliamentarians, both happy and unhappy. Divorce in medieval England was infrequent and difficult to secure, but this did not stop individuals from making an attempt…
Medieval England knew two forms of divorce. The first, and overwhelmingly the most important, was divorce a vinculo matrimonii (from the bond of marriage), a ruling by the Church that a marriage had never been valid. This turned on some default in the couple’s consent to it, either that consent had been coerced or they themselves were canonically incapable of giving it (because, for example, they were underage or too closely related to make a valid marriage). The second, what might be termed a separation, was divorce a mensa et thoro (from bed and board), a ruling that the couple need no longer live together on…
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Anarcho-Capitalism with David D. Friedman
03 Aug 2021 Leave a comment
in comparative institutional analysis, constitutional political economy, David Friedman, defence economics, economics of crime, history of economic thought, law and economics, property rights, Public Choice Tags: anarchocapitalism
Jordan Peterson ~ The Uncomfortable Fact About IQ
03 Aug 2021 Leave a comment
in economics of education, human capital, labour supply, occupational choice, poverty and inequality Tags: cognitive psychology
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