"Today, children in sub-Saharan Africa are more likely…"—Prof. Angus Deaton, @Princeton
Data: buff.ly/1K2tELk http://t.co/lrTdiLi3F7—
HumanProgress.org (@humanprogress) July 12, 2015
A stunning aspect of The Great Escape since my parents were born
13 Jul 2015 Leave a comment
in applied welfare economics, development economics, economic history, growth disasters, growth miracles, health economics Tags: Africa, British economy, British history, child mortality, child poverty, infant mortality, life expectancies, The Great Enrichment, The Great Escape, The Great Fact
The history of camera
13 Jul 2015 Leave a comment
in applied welfare economics, economic history, entrepreneurship, technological progress Tags: cameras, creative destruction, mobile phones, smartphones, The Great Enrichment
Naomi Klein versus The Great Fact
12 Jul 2015 Leave a comment
in comparative institutional analysis, development economics, economic history, growth disasters, growth miracles Tags: activists, do gooders, evidence-based policy, extreme poverty, global poverty, Naomi Klein, The Great Enrichment, The Great Fact
71% of the world live on less than $10 per day buff.ly/1D5kA3c http://t.co/GLCifBBOGP—
Business Insider (@businessinsider) July 11, 2015
Extreme poverty declined > 50% from 1.9 bil in '90 to 836 mil today: on.undp.org/Ppj00 #WPD2015 #MDGs http://t.co/vUDO5AYd4H—
UN Development (@UNDP) July 12, 2015
The Great Escape: infant mortality since 1990
10 Jul 2015 Leave a comment
in development economics, growth disasters, growth miracles, health economics Tags: child poverty, extreme poverty, global poverty, infant mortality, life expectancies, The Great Enrichment, The Great Escape, The Great Fact
Child mortality declined in all world regions.
Here is by how much: http://t.co/06lS3ZELKr—
Max Roser (@MaxCRoser) June 26, 2015
Are the rich getting richer, poor getting poorer as @MaxRashbrooke once again suggests?
08 Jul 2015 Leave a comment
in applied welfare economics, economic history, labour economics, politics - New Zealand, poverty and inequality, technological progress Tags: child poverty, family poverty, Leftover Left, Max Rashbrooke, The Great Enrichment, top 1%
Max Rashbrooke has been at it again in the paper today.
Don’t these graphs show that everyone is richer in New Zealand than 30 years ago and there has been not much change in either child poverty or inequality for coming on for 20 years? The fall in child poverty started before the introduction of Working for Families.
Technological progress in the form of new goods and product upgrades are poorly captured in measures of living standards over time as is increases in life expectancies.
1993 vs 2013: http://t.co/tdnNqmRmcS—
History Pics (@HistoryPixs) January 08, 2014
HT: Suffer the little children – Inequality and child poverty – Closer TogetherCloser Together.
Why does 1% of history have 99% of the wealth?
07 Jul 2015 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, comparative institutional analysis, economic growth, economic history, liberalism Tags: Deidre McCloskey, The Great Enrichment, The Great Escape, The Great Fact
Matt Ridley on the Pope and The Great Fact
06 Jul 2015 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, development economics, economic history, economics of regulation, energy economics, entrepreneurship, environmental economics, financial economics, growth disasters, growth miracles, health economics, history of economic thought, human capital, industrial organisation, labour economics, liberalism, survivor principle Tags: doomsday prophecies, Matt Ridley doomsday prophets, Papal economics, The Great Enrichment, The Great Escape, The Great Fact
See which way the data points for yourself, like @mattwridley. buff.ly/1HsZxgx #health #progress http://t.co/B3KbUJOn05—
HumanProgress.org (@humanprogress) June 30, 2015
Moving Brad DeLong’s Time Machine behind John Rawls’ veil of ignorance
06 Jul 2015 Leave a comment
in applied welfare economics, constitutional political economy, economic history, Rawls and Nozick Tags: Brad Delong, Elizabeth Warren, good old days, John Rawls, The Great Enrichment, The Great Escape, The Great Fact, time machine, Twitter left
Brad DeLong set up a thought experiment to work out if we were better off than in the good old days. He asked how much money would you want to take with you if you had to step into a time machine to go back to some specific point in time and not be worse off for the trip in living standards and life expectancy. He was writing in 1995, talking about going back to 1895.
John Rawls asks a similar question by saying what type of society would you to agree to in a social contract if you’re behind a veil of ignorance. You didn’t know where you were going to be in society behind the veil of ignorance.
All you know you is you will be some random member of that society, at the top, bottom or somewhere in between.
…no one knows his place in society, his class position or social status; nor does he know his fortune in the distribution of natural assets and abilities, his intelligence and strength, and the like.
What social institutions would you agree in that society given you don’t know where you will be in it?
John Rawls also said that the society was fair if you didn’t mind showing up somewhere in it as a random member.
Let’s suppose a thought experiment which combines a time machine with a veil of ignorance:
- Alien proctologists from outer space take time off from kidnapping rednecks at closing time at pubs to kidnap you instead;
- After probing your nether regions, but before flying off to light years away where they came from without any further earthly contact they offer you the option of beaming back to where you came from but with a twist in time;
- You can beam back to be a random member of your current society or a random member of a society in the past of your choice; but
- Random reassignment to either the present or a past of your choosing are your only options as the alien kidnap victim.
Behind that inter-temporal veil of ignorance, would you choose to be a random member of your own society or prefer to beam back in time to before the ravages of neoliberalism destroyed the good old days?
Apparently, we not a cent better off compared to the 70s because all the income gains, every single cent, went into the pockets of the top 10%, if Senator Warren is to be believed in her recent Washington post op-ed:
When you line up by Senator Warren to go into the time machine, remember to leave your iPhones and air points at the door.
Innovation is letting us accomplish more with less. Learn more: buff.ly/1LmtAZD #tech #progress http://t.co/e2kQlGu3NA—
HumanProgress.org (@humanprogress) June 22, 2015
Down and out in Australia as measured by consumer durables affordability
30 Jun 2015 Leave a comment
in applied welfare economics, economic history Tags: Australia, living standards, The Great Enrichment
Economic freedom improves everyone's lives – especially the poor – as this graph from the IPA's @NovakMikayla shows: http://t.co/5qHIRcVRcN—
InstofPublicAffairs (@TheIPA) April 17, 2015
Televisions in the good old days
30 Jun 2015 Leave a comment
in economic history, technological progress Tags: living standards, The Great Enrichment
More heat than light in the recent inequality debate
26 Jun 2015 1 Comment
The rise in articles about inequality in NZ sure doesn't match the data on inequality.
youtube.com/watch?v=uCT7aE… http://t.co/z2eWKgXJiL—
Eric Crampton (@EricCrampton) June 26, 2015
@MaxRashbrooke The top 1% in New Zealand are lazy and incompetent as a ruling class
24 Jun 2015 1 Comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, economic history, entrepreneurship, health and safety, human capital, industrial organisation, liberalism, Marxist economics, poverty and inequality, Rawls and Nozick, unions Tags: capitalism and freedom, Class war, Joan Robinson, Joseph Schumpeter, social insurance, The Great Enrichment, top 1%, welfare state, withering away in the proletariat
New work by Chris Ball and John Creedy shows substantial *declines* in NZ inequality.
initiativeblog.com/2015/06/24/ine… http://t.co/f94fw4Bhae—
Eric Crampton (@EricCrampton) June 24, 2015
The top 1% in New Zealand really have been dropping the class war ball for at least a generation.
Source: The World Top Incomes Database.
Not only have the New Zealand top 1% been pretty miserable at increasing their share of incomes, hardly any change since 1990 and not much before that, the top 1% allowed inequality in both consumption and disposable income to actually fall since 1990 as shown by Treasury analysis published today.
Joan Robinson was on to this in the 1940s when she said the battle cry of Marxists would have to change from the 1848 version “rise up ye workers, rise up for you have nothing to lose but your chains” to “rise up ye workers, rise up for you have nothing to lose but the prospect of a suburban home and a motorcar”.
Today that battle cry of the Marxist revolution would have to be “rise up ye workers rise up for you have nothing to lose but your iPhone and your air points”. As Joan Robinson observed in the 1940s, that’s not much of a basis for a revolutionary movement.
The Quantity and Quality of Japanese, Singaporean and Hong Kong Lives, 1965 to 1995
23 Jun 2015 Leave a comment
in applied welfare economics, development economics, economic history, Gary Becker, growth miracles Tags: Hong Kong The Great Escape, Japan, life expectancy is, Singapore, The Great Enrichment, The Great Fact
Figure 1: increase in real GDP and increase in real GDP plus life expectancy GDP increase equivalent, Japan, Singapore and Hong Kong, 1965 to 1995
GDP per capita is usually used to proxy for the quality of life of individuals living in different countries. Becker and his co-authors computed a "full" growth rate that incorporates the gains in health and life expectancy.
Figure 2 shows that Japan, Hong Kong and Singapore started from similar levels of real GDP per capita PPP in 1960.
Figure 2: GDP per capita in 2014 US$ (converted to 2014 price level with updated 2011 PPPs), Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore, 1960 – 2000
Source: The Conference Board. 2015. The Conference Board Total Economy Database™, May 2015, http://www.conference-board.org/data/economydatabase/
What Oxfam doesn’t want you to know: global poverty has been declining faster than at any point in human history
23 Jun 2015 Leave a comment
in development economics, economic history, growth miracles Tags: capitalism and freedom, extreme poverty, global poverty, Leftover Left, Oxfam, The Great Enrichment, The Great Escape, The Great Fact
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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