James Zuccollo • Jan 15, 2015 •
Last week I discussed the importance of good fiscal rules for sustainability, but the recent mess in the UK has demonstrated how poor rules can inhibit growth. When the Government took office in 2010 it faced a startlingly high deficit. It promised to eliminate that within five years, which happens to be the length of […] … Read More
Matt Nolan • Feb 19, 2014 •
On Valentine’s Day I had the opportunity to write a Top 10 at 10 for the always good Rates Blog. As it was Valentine’s Day I thought linking to some romantic economics might be a good idea. As the sexiest economist competition started that day – I didn’t have the opportunity to point this out. […] … Read More
Shamubeel Eaqub • Nov 27, 2013 •
Statistics New Zealand launched their social indicators on 26 November 2013. It is a collection of data from the General Social Survey, which supplements various ‘hard’ economic data with ‘softer’ measures of perceptions. I was part of a panel that spoke briefly at the launch. Donal at Economics New Zealand has written about it already. The question […] … Read More
Matt Nolan • 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 […] … Read More
Matt Nolan • Nov 25, 2013 •
Today is Doctor Who’s 50th anniversary. Seeing that I wanted to do an “economics of Dr Who” post … but how do I do that? All the Time Lords are dead, and the other people involved are either human or weird aliens that are in conflict in some way. There isn’t really much of an […] … Read More
Shamubeel Eaqub • Oct 18, 2013 •
The moot in a debate organised and run by VILP (Victoria International Leadership Programme) students on 15 October 2013 was: “Is inequality natural?” I was on the affirmative team with Harry Berger and Even Bain, two smart and articulate Victoria students. We won the debate 49-43. Once you adjust for the home ground advantage to […] … Read More
Shamubeel Eaqub • Oct 03, 2013 •
Team NZ sadly didn’t win the America’s Cup. It would have been a good party in Auckland if we had. Just like the RWC was. With more than a little hubris, there were numerous media stories on the economic benefits of winning and hosting the America’s cup. Now it appears it was too early. In […] … Read More
Shamubeel Eaqub • Sep 03, 2013 •
Oliver Hartwich of the NZ Initiative revisits the broken window fallacy: “Natural disasters and wars never generate prosperity. They always destroy it, by definition.” He is absolutely right. It’s good to see this revisited. Even though the “seen benefits, unseen costs” principle was articulated by Bastiat in an 1850 essay. Wikipedia article on the broken […] … Read More
Matt Nolan • Aug 14, 2013 •
I see that Offsetting Behaviour has already beaten me to it, but in case you haven’t seen it I’d like to warmly introduce Shamubeel Eaqub as a new TVHE contributor. He is joining Agnitio, Goonix, James, and Myself as “potentially regular writers” – which implies having the ability to just write something on here whenever […] … Read More
Shamubeel Eaqub • Aug 11, 2013 •
National has announced policy to support first home buyers to take on more debt. It will have an entirely predictable outcome: higher house prices and higher debt. The only good Continue Reading → … Read More