The Dismal Science

Opinion: Precious arable land

Eric Crampton • Apr 23, 2018

• agriculture,
• apartment buildings,
• congestion,
• developer,
• government,
• houses,
• infrastructure,
• land,
• New Zealand,
• paddock,
• passenger rail,
• transport,
• upzoning

I just don’t get the fixation with making sure that nobody builds a house on agricultural land. The government plans to make it harder for councils to approve new homes and lifestyle blocks on productive land near urban areas. A report out today, called Our Land 2018, shows New Zealand’s urban sprawl is eating up some of the … Read More

Opinion: Economic growth within Environmental limits

Michael Reddell • Apr 20, 2018

• agriculture,
• capital,
• carbon emissions,
• ecology,
• Environment,
• exports,
• GDP,
• immigration,
• immigration policy,
• Labour Party,
• markets,
• MBIE,
• Ministry for the Environment,
• New Zealand,
• Population growth,
• productivity comission,
• rental housing,
• rents

That was the title of a speech David Parker gave a couple of weeks ago.  Parker is, as you will recall, a man wearing many hats: Minister for the Environment, Associate Minister of Finance, Minister for Trade and Export Growth, and Attorney-General.  Since he was speaking to a seminar organised by the Resource Management Law Association, this speech looked … Read More

Visiting economists opine on NZ

Michael Reddell • Apr 19, 2018

• economics,
• Economy,
• forecast,
• GDP,
• growth potential,
• IMF,
• monetary policy,
• New Zealand

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

Choice of baseline matters

Eric Crampton • Apr 17, 2018

• alcohol,
• baseline curve,
• Binge drinking,
• drink,
• economics,
• Health,
• light drinkers,
• Mortality,
• non drinkers,
• study,
• The Lancet

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

Population size and GDP per capita: US states

Michael Reddell • Apr 16, 2018

• America,
• capita,
• economics,
• EU,
• Europe,
• Florence,
• GDP,
• History,
• metropolitan,
• New York,
• New Zealand,
• Population size,
• theoretical,
• US

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

Is Vaping Legal? Eric Crampton on the SmokeFree Environments Act

Eric Crampton • Apr 16, 2018

• Fairfax papers,
• legal,
• Medicines Act,
• Ministry of Health,
• Nicky Wagner,
• Nicotine,
• oral tobacco,
• packagin,
• SFEA,
• SmokeFree Environments Act,
• vaping

The Fairfax papers have a good summary out today of what’s going on in vaping – as of a month ago. They write: When British public health experts first said vaping (using e-cigarettes) poses only a fraction of the health risk of tobacco smoking, the trend surged in popularity around the world, including in New Zealand. But it remains illegal … Read More

Small size simply isn’t the issue …

Michael Reddell • Apr 12, 2018

• Australia,
• capita,
• country,
• Data,
• economic performance,
• Europe,
• GDP,
• government,
• income,
• labour productivity,
• market,
• New Zealand,
• regulation,
• Tasman,
• tax

Just yesterday I wrote, in response to a comment that My point simply was that there is no obvious correlation, in the cross section, between population size and GDP per capita (or productivity). I’m not aware of any serious observer arguing otherwise At the level of very simple correlations, I’d illustrated this lack of relationship –  whether for all … Read More

The 10-Year baby window that is the key to the women’s pay gap

Paul Walker • Apr 11, 2018

• careers,
• children,
• fathers,
• feminism,
• marriage,
• Mothers,
• New York Times,
• pay gap,
• United States

An interesting new twist on the effects of children on the pay gap between men and women. It has long been argued that having kids is one reason for the gap in pay between men and women but now a new study suggests that women who have their first child before 25 or after 35 eventually close the salary divide … Read More

More on population and per capita GDP

Michael Reddell • Apr 10, 2018

• capita,
• communism,
• country,
• Economic growth,
• Europe,
• GDP,
• growth rates,
• New Zealand,
• oil,
• population movement,
• Syria,
• US

My quick post on Saturday, in response to someone’s comment, was designed simply to illustrate what should have been quite an obvious point: looking across countries in any particular year, countries with large populations don’t tend to be richer (per capita GDP) than countries with small populations.  Just among the very big countries, the United States is towards … Read More

Early gender gaps among university graduates

Paul Walker • Apr 10, 2018

• economics,
• economies,
• gender pay gap,
• graduates,
• Men,
• pay,
• university,
• wage,
• women

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