The Dismal Science

Featured image: Grow large with milk

Grow large with milk

Eric Crampton • Jun 09, 2017

A new paper out in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition shows there’s an association between children drinking non-dairy milk, as opposed to cow’s milk, and lower heights.  It would be tempting to take these results and make a case for ending Canadian dairy supply management, but there are better reasons for ending Canadian supply management. The press … Read More

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Featured image: For the birds – reflections on the PCE report

For the birds – reflections on the PCE report

Eric Crampton • Jun 08, 2017

There’s an important recommendation missing from the Parliamentary Commissioner for the Environment’s list of things to help endangered birds. It hardly would work for all birds, but it is ridiculous that it is banned for those birds for which it would work. Let people farm them. Roger Beattie has demonstrated that he can successfully raise weka. There would be … Read More

Featured image: Health costs and the Consumer Price Index

Health costs and the Consumer Price Index

Eric Crampton • May 30, 2017

So Labour and National are scrapping over whether National’s increased or decreased the health budget. There’s no question that health budgets are well up since National took office, whether in per capita terms, real terms, nominal terms, or real per capita terms. Population’s up about 10% since 2008; health budgets in CPI-adjusted terms are up about 29% since 2008. So … Read More

Featured image: The real increase in infrastructure

The real increase in infrastructure

Donal Curtin • May 28, 2017

The government made a decent effort in the Budget to boost the spend on infrastructure, as it showed in this graph, taken from the ‘Capital at a Glance’ document handed out yesterday as part of the Budget material. But if you thought that we will have an extra $32.5 billion worth of shiny new infrastructure in four … Read More

Featured image: Tipping in New Zealand

Tipping in New Zealand

Eric Crampton • May 25, 2017

New Zealand has an excellent non-tipping equilibrium, but there’s been some discussion of encouraging a shift to tipping. A lot of restaurants do kinda have it, mostly (I think) as a way of securing rents from foreign tourists who don’t know better. But most of the discussion around tipping has the base economics of the thing wrong. The main point … Read More

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Featured image: More people means more emissions. So how about fewer people?

More people means more emissions. So how about fewer people?

Michael Reddell • May 24, 2017

I’ve never had that much interest in climate change.  Perhaps it comes from living in Wellington.   If average local temperatures were a couple of degrees warmer here most people would be quite happy.    And as successive earthquakes seem to have the South Island pushing under the North Island, raising the land levels around here –  you can … Read More

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Featured image: New immigration data from Statistics New Zealand

New immigration data from Statistics New Zealand

Michael Reddell • May 22, 2017

One can, and does, grizzle about the range and quality of New Zealand’s official statistics.  But last Friday saw a small but welcome step forward. On various occasions I’ve written about the limitations of the permanent and long-term migration data.  Those data are based on the self-reported intentions of travellers at the time they cross the New Zealand border, and … Read More

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