Unclear if Draconian Measures Saved Lives — John P.A. Ioannidis
06 Oct 2020 Leave a comment
in applied welfare economics, economics of bureaucracy, health economics, politics - Australia, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA, Public Choice Tags: economics of pandemics, offsetting bbehaviour, pessimism bias, The fatal conceit, unintended consequences
Assistant Pastor of church an “employee” for unfair dismissal claim
06 Oct 2020 Leave a comment
I have commented previously on the question of the employment status of members of the clergy, which can be quite complicated. A recent decision of the Fair Work Commission, Solomon Woldeyohannes v Zion Church in Melbourne Australia Inc [2020] FWC 4194 (11 August 2020) holds that an assistant pastor of a small incorporated church was an employee of the church, and was able to commence an action for unfair dismissal.
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The ubiquity and selectiveness of statistical discrimination
05 Oct 2020 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, discrimination, economics of crime, economics of education, economics of information, human capital, labour economics, labour supply, law and economics, politics - USA, poverty and inequality Tags: adverse selection, asymmetric information, racial discrimination, statistical discrimination
Lang and Lehmann 2005, JEL
What should public service economists do?
05 Oct 2020 Leave a comment
in comparative institutional analysis, constitutional political economy, economics of bureaucracy, history of economic thought, James Buchanan, James Buchanan, Public Choice, public economics Tags: The fatal conceit
One less thing for @amnesty to grumble about
05 Oct 2020 Leave a comment
in defence economics, laws of war, war and peace Tags: regressive left, useful idiots, war against terror
Milton Friedman on Taxation
05 Oct 2020 Leave a comment
Yesterday’s column featured some of Milton Friedman’s wisdom from 50 years ago on how a high level of societal capital (work ethic, spirit of self-reliance, etc) is needed if we want to limit government.
Today, let’s look at what he said back then about that era’s high tax rates.
His core argument is that high marginal tax rates are self-defeating because the affected taxpayers (like Trump and Biden) will change their behavior to protect themselves from being pillaged.
This was in the pre-Reagan era, when the top federal tax rate was 70 percent, and notice that Friedman made a Laffer Curve-type prediction that a flat tax of 19 percent would collect more revenue than the so-called progressive system.
We actually don’t know if that specific prediction would have been accurate, but we do know that Reagan successfully lowered the top tax rate on the rich from 70 percent…
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What Was Hygiene Like In The Victorian Era?
05 Oct 2020 Leave a comment
in economic history, health economics
How we fool ourselves
05 Oct 2020 Leave a comment
by Judith Curry
Crowd sourcing examples of fallacious thinking from climate science.
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How not to science: Lessons from flat earthers and climate change deniers
05 Oct 2020 Leave a comment
A great quote from one of my favorite shows, Stargate SG1 (Season 3 Episode 19, “New Ground”)
Science is an amazingly powerful tool for disentangling fact and fiction. When done correctly, it is a systematic, objective, unbiased, and self-correcting method for understanding our universe. Unfortunately, many people don’t appreciate the objectivity that science requires, and instead view it as a blunt instrument for proving what they already “know” to be true. You see, science always has to ask open-ended questions, because science is not a method for trying to prove something. Rather, science is a method for trying to learn what is true. It is a method for setting aside your biases, testing possibilities, and discerning objective reality. Thus, science must always go from evidence to a conclusion. It can never go from a conclusion to evidence. Indeed, if you start with a conclusion, then look for evidence to support…
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