Matt Nolan
On GDP and policy - The Dismal Science
Feb 17, 2014 •
Excellent article over at Aeon (we linked to earlier in the week, but it deserves its own post), I’d suggest you head over and give it a read. To quote one passage: Kuznets lost the argument about measuring social welfare over economic activity back in the 1930s. Now it’s time to put these two concepts in […]
New Zealand’s sexiest economist 2014: Voting - The Dismal Science
Feb 14, 2014 •
After an exhaustive nominations round the final 20 New Zealand economists have been selected. To quote from someone who nominated for this round of “New Zealand’s Sexiest Economist” (NZSE). At first I thought this was ridiculous. But thinking about the work New Zealand economists do, I think there are a lot of ‘sexy economists’ ~ […]
Policy and heterogeneity: A point - The Dismal Science
Feb 12, 2014 •
Via Geoff Simmons came this interesting post about new health policy in New Zealand. This isn’t my area of expertise, but I found the post really insightful – I’d definitely recommend it as a read. However, a small part of the post did spark my imagination, and will lead me to write on a loosely […]
Will Wilkinson on discussing inequality with those who won’t define it - The Dismal Science
Feb 07, 2014 •
I really like this rant by Will Wilkinson, it reminds me of the sort of thing I wish I could write when I’m annoyed. I’ll be honest, a lot of people out there talking about “let’s tackle inequality” aren’t actually interested in social justice, policy, the poor, or anything that matters – they are interested […]
A defence of the calculation of the living wage - The Dismal Science
Feb 07, 2014 •
Over at The Standard I noticed this defence of the recent living wage calculations from the two critiques that had popped up (which I linked to here). The key points seem to be: The living wage concept was being defined in a different way by critics – making the attacks a wee bit of a […]
Are we all confusing status competition and ‘inequality’: Short answer, yes - The Dismal Science
Feb 06, 2014 •
The authors of the Spirit Level have done a piece on the relationship between inequality and negative outcomes here. Now I’ve previously strongly disagreed with the Spirit Level here. However, I feel that I can discuss this specific post separately – I feel that it is clear and more focused than the book. I am […]
In defence of the RBNZ’s upcoming hike - The Dismal Science
Feb 05, 2014 •
Although I no longer have the time to keep up with the literature on financial stability policy (and so am not commenting on it – this is due to my switch to detail income data analysis), I still spend a bunch of time looking at the national economy and monetary policy. I see that a […]
Truth is a strong word when discussing inequality … - The Dismal Science
Jan 24, 2014 •
Over at Polity Rob Salmond has promised us the truth about the gap between NZ’s rich and the rest (via Toby Manhire)! This would be encouraging, given the complexity of the data. I just want to say at the start I have full respect for people who want to discuss these important issues, including the […]
Thinking about what ‘economics’ is - The Dismal Science
Jan 17, 2014 •
I am trying to gradually clarify my perception of what economics is. Here are some cliff notes from a recent discussion I had: Economists try to answer questions about “the allocation of resources given scarcity”. Every question is quite specific and different, economics education involves learning a broad set of skills that allow us to […]
Folk addiction = time inconsistency? - The Dismal Science
Jan 16, 2014 •
As you may or may not know, I am a vegetarian. As a result, occasionally I talk myself into needing more protein. To do this I eat cashews, which I think are actually just mainly fat, but are very yummy. Anyways, I went along to the supermarket and purchased a small number of cashews. The […]