I have long stated that targets of “financial stability” and “price stability” (monetary policy) were important – but should be performed in separate, yet independent, operational terms (here and here). Namely, keep the central bank focused on monetary policy while another organisation/operational entity solely focuses on the more long term goal of financial stability. In […]
Judging by the fact that the “tax-free threshold” has reappeared as a policy prescription, I can tell it is election year. I am against tax-free thresholds. This has been discussed various times before, but the most detailed exposition of my feelings came out three years ago – during the previous election year. If I had […]
One thing that irritates the hell out of me is the fact that many people believe the slightest sign of cognitive limitations implies that we should have government intervention. Hell I’m centrist, I see myself as left-leaning in somethings and right-leaning in others. But this attitude leads to ridiculous, poorly thought out, interventions. Several things […]
Economists like to discuss issues with trade-offs. Specifically, if there is a goal in mind economists LOVE to discuss how to reach that goal at the lowest cost. For some reason, I find many non-economists out there don’t share this enthusiasm, at least implicitly. Just look at what happened when SuperFreakonomics discussed the idea of […]
I suppose I should make some falsifiable predictions for the year ahead – so I can explain at the end of the year why I was so wrong 😉 Lets go (note, these are my rough picks – they aren’t associated with anyone else, and they definitely don’t exist in a professional capacity) : NZ […]
Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution has an interesting post discussing methodological individualism. As a fan boy for methodological individualism, I felt that his criticism of it as a method went a bit far. Here I just want to describe why.