Guest Work • May 15, 2018 •
By Matt Boyd and Nick Wilson We have just published an article (free online) on existential risks – with an NZ orientated perspective.1 In this blog we discuss some of the issues that NZ society could start to discuss. Do we value future people? Do we care about the wellbeing of people who don’t yet exist? Do we care … Read More
Eric Crampton • May 03, 2018 •
We’ve known about the problems of publication bias at least since 1992. If it’s easier to get statistically significant results published than insignificant results, then there are whole literatures that become untrustworthy. Andrea Menclova at Canterbury is doing something about it. This has been a while in the making – we were talking about it when I was still at … Read More
Donal Curtin • Apr 25, 2018 •
You want to buy a widget. Bugsy’s has the model you want, it’s $6. Malone’s also sells it, for $5. You may not know Malone’s got it cheaper, so you end up paying a dollar too much at Bugsy’s. But suppose Bugsy’s and Malone’s are required by the Prevent-A-Widget-Ripoff Authority to post their prices online? With a moment’s search you … Read More
Michael Reddell • Apr 19, 2018 •
Lots of people, even abroad, look at New Zealand’s economy. For example, there are ratings agencies selling a commercial product to clients, and there are investment funds putting their own and clients’ money at risk. And then there are the government agencies; notably the IMF and the OECD. Every year or so, a small team of IMF … Read More
Eric Crampton • Apr 17, 2018 •
Looks like folks are back to arguing about whether there’s a J-curve in alcohol consumption. The J-curve plots out the relationship between all-cause mortality and drinking. Non-drinkers are at the left-hand upwards tip of the J, light-to-moderate drinkers are in the dip, then heavy drinkers are in the upwards tilt at the right hand side. And the ballpark numbers I … Read More
Michael Reddell • Apr 16, 2018 •
There have been a few posts here (here, here, and here) in the last week or so around the issue of population size and GDP per capita – not because my prior is that there is any such relationship but (a) because I think there isn’t, and it is worth occasionally illustrating that across countries, and (b) … Read More
Paul Walker • Apr 10, 2018 •
In a recent article at VoxEU.org Marco Francesconi and Matthias Parey write on Early gender gaps among university graduates. A summary of their column reads Women earning substantially less than men in all advanced economies, despite the considerable progress women have made in labour markets worldwide. This column explores the recent experience of university … Read More
Michael Reddell • Apr 09, 2018 •
I noticed a few comments to another of my posts about possible links between population size and economic performance. My working assumption is that, on average, across all countries, there isn’t any such relationship. Apart from anything else, if there were a positive relationship – that was more than chance – it would suggest that two countries … Read More
Public Health Expert • Apr 03, 2018 •
Prof Tony Blakely, Prof Nick Wilson, Dr Anja Mizdrak, Dr Cristina Cleghorn From 1 April 2018, the UK is putting in place a type of sugary drinks tax – actually a “soft drinks industry levy”. This blog reviews how they are doing it, early signs of its success, and ponders its relevance for NZ. We also take this opportunity to … Read More
Eric Crampton • Mar 08, 2018 •
For the past several years, public health lobbyists have pretended that all opposition to sugar taxes is ideologically motivated or dishonest. They have argued that the only thing stopping the government from implementing their beneficent proposals has been the actions of nefarious interest groups. And so it is interesting to read what the Ministry of Health’s officials actually thought about … Read More