Matt Nolan
Before railing against economics, read this - The Dismal Science
Jan 16, 2014 •
I had trouble getting out of bed this morning, so to help get me going I decided to read an essay about economics. And I ran back into a treat of an essay I think we should all read. This is Modern Economics and its Critics, 1: by Partha Dasgupta. His focus is explicitly on […]
What are we asking with productivity in NZ? - The Dismal Science
Jan 09, 2014 •
Danyl posted about the recent Productivity Commission paper on Australia vs NZ productivity differences recently. If you ignore the politics and conspiracy (the timing of the paper was well known and they were asking people to write about it, hence why I wrote this at the time) he asks a good questions, why have we […]
What does it mean to have “many models” - The Dismal Science
Jan 08, 2014 •
Dani Rodrik has been arguing that the mistake many economists, and non-economists, make is to look for “one right model” – when in truth economics is a form of craft, where you have a multitude of models and need to know what is appropriate in different circumstances (ht Economist’s View). To anyone who has studied […]
Absolute minimums and relative poverty - The Dismal Science
Jan 07, 2014 •
Recently we discussed the idea of the equity-efficiency trade-off in very broad terms. As we noted, in order to discuss such a concept we need to think about a series of issues about groups. Some of these are easier to conceptualise than others – one of the simplest (albeit not simple) is poverty. Now anti-poverty […]
Some links against a Living Wage - The Dismal Science
Jan 07, 2014 •
With the Living Wage idea cropping up around the place, I’ve noticed a couple of places where there have been criticisms of the result: A review by Brian Scott, where he points out that many of the defined “needs” required to get this wage are in fact not things some people in society would put […]
New Year’s Resolution: Get a handle on inequality in New Zealand - The Dismal Science
Jan 07, 2014 •
It is 2014, isn’t that nice. As I’ve promised, this year I’m going to write more on income inequality (and broader issues of inequality) when I get the opportunity. With the recovery in the labour market and economy running above expectations, there may be less need for us to comment on macroeconomic issues here – […]
Religion and institutions - The Dismal Science
Dec 07, 2013 •
I see the Pope made some comments about capitalism and social justice, and a bunch of economists were unhappy with this (Mankiw, Sumner) – or were unhappy with the way economists viewed the Pope’s comments. Note: This piece is a good discussion. My view is easily summarized. Meh. I grew up in a Catholic family, […]
Comparing recessions: Unemployment in New Zealand - The Dismal Science
Dec 05, 2013 •
Keeping in mind Shamubeel’s point that we need to be careful looking at aggregates, I thought it would be nice to update the graph from this post back in early-2009 – when people were talking about 11% unemployment (Note: I have moved both series across a year). Cheers Statistics NZ. This supports the type […]
NZ inequality statistics: Some of the research - The Dismal Science
Nov 26, 2013 •
Donal over at Economics New Zealand posted up some OECD figures that indicate that the Gini coefficient over the OECD was the same in 2010 as it was in the mid-1990s, and that it is actually lower in New Zealand. As I have noted earlier, I am going to start writing about inequality on the blog. […]
A bunch of interesting links - The Dismal Science
Nov 25, 2013 •
All links via Marginal Revolution – all things I want to comment on, but do not have the time. View this as a sort of saving space! A site focused on ‘fixing up undergrad economics‘. This essay was worth reading. However, looking at their target I am not sure it is undergrad they are necessarily […]