I agree with Dim Post that the choice of countries to add to the choice of countries made in the Spirit Level is a bit arbitrary (although I think Not PC and Kiwiblog also have a point regarding how sensitive the regression results are to the choice of countries that aren’t strictly the largest outliers […]
So if the main justification for compulsory super is that “people are too stupid to save for themselves”, how can we say that a government made up of these same people will be able to determine the “right” level of savings?
Over at Econlog, Arnold Kling stated that “persistence” in employment implied that the New Keynesian story was off (ht Marginal Revolution) This sounded a bit funny to me – New Keynesianism is a framework for models, one where I had seen the persistence in unemployment, and employment (which is a well known stylized fact) before. […]
From the NBR Twitter: Hide: Having John Boscawen as Deputy Leader will further elevate ACT’s campaign against the ETS At first I was like who cares. Then I realised that there were two words missing, it should read: Having John Boscawen as Deputy Leader will further elevate ACT’s (economically illiterate) campaign against the ETS This […]
If this is the case for compulsory super, then I guess I better figure out where I’m going to move once it gets introduced – as it is obviously going to be poorly thought through and adhoc. Lets start:
Eric Crampton notes that Peter Dunne views income splitting as a subsidy for “household services” – as he thinks the secondary partner in a relationship should be at home more often. Ok, well he is right that it is discouraging second earner labor supply, and so will end up with second earners staying at home […]