Matt Nolan
What is a Gini? - The Dismal Science
Jul 21, 2014 •
Everywhere we turn nowadays people are talking about Ginis. And sadly, they are not misspelling Genie, they are talking about Gini coefficients. The reason for this interest in Gini coefficient stems from the fact they are used to measure “inequality” in an income distribution – with books such as the Spirit Level made hay discussing […]
A response to Danyl on data and inequality - The Dismal Science
Jul 16, 2014 •
Over at Dim Post I see Danyl is discussing the latest (2014) Household Income Report and Piketty’s book Capital in the 21st Century. Excellent – there are lots of important and interesting issues to discussing look at these sources. However, in this instance the data he is using and his interpretation is sadly a bit […]
QOTD: Andrew Dickson and Bill Kaye-Blake - The Dismal Science
Jul 07, 2014 •
While the blog was out of action I noticed a lot of people linking the following article by Andrew Dickson and Bill Kaye-Blake (from Groping to Bethlehem). All the links focused on how the article made the case for a tax on sugar. That is fine and all, it was an externality case that we […]
Quick note: Earnings inequality and aging - The Dismal Science
Jul 02, 2014 •
Note: I know I’m not replying to comments right now, I’m very sorry. It isn’t you, it is me – this time of year is always pretty full on for me! Keep an eye out – in the next couple of weeks I will find time to turn around and comment back. Post will be […]
Hiding value judgments behind economic rhetoric: The case of obesity - The Dismal Science
Jun 13, 2014 •
Note: Renamed this from “Discussion Thursday” as I ended up inadvertently writing a post rather than a comment … Sorry, a bit busy to do real posts. Also wanted to get a discussion going on this excellent quote from Eric Crampton about using sugar taxes to pay for the “health care externality” from obesity/sugar consumption: […]
More rhetoric on restricting the choice of the poor - The Dismal Science
Jun 10, 2014 •
I see that leading Stuff today is an article on New Zealand’s “obesity epidemic”, and how we must changes some things because we are “killing ourselves”. The policy suggestions are: In a report published today, the association calls for drastic cures for the bulge, including taxing or minimum prices for sugary drinks, restricting food advertising […]
Top 10 on Global Warming - The Dismal Science
Jun 09, 2014 •
So Interest.co.nz allowed me to pop up another one of these “Top 10″ links things – where I blatantly use more than ten links to make some arbitrary point about some arbitrary subject. This time, global warming – go over and give it a look. However, there are a few links that I missed. An […]
Productivity in the UK and NZ - The Dismal Science
Jun 06, 2014 •
I see that Patrick Nolan has an article in Public Finance talking about UK and New Zealand productivity. Go read it, but come back here to comment as they don’t seem to have a comment system. As we are a NZ audience, I’ll quote this bit: While New Zealand faces different challenges, its experience can throw light […]
The rhetoric of restricting the choice of the poor - The Dismal Science
Jun 05, 2014 •
Via Gareth Morgan on twitter I spotted the following post from the University of Otago Public Health blog. The money quote: They found that the biggest impact of a minimum price policy was on “harmful” drinkers in the lowest income quintile (7.6% reduction in alcohol), whereas the impact on harmful drinkers in the highest income quintile […]
On free-riders and externalities - The Dismal Science
Jun 04, 2014 •
Today I wrote a brief post on the Green announcement of a carbon tax. I do support the carbon tax, but just wanted to raise some specific issues to think about. However, a number of people on twitter were unhappy with me saying that, without Kyoto, we didn’t have an externality here – and I […]