Something I have noticed over time is that there is always a mass of confusion surrounding average vs marginal costs (or benefits) in economics. Although there is some confusion with fixed vs variable costs as well (an issue that I believe is closely related) the issue of average vs marginal costs appears ohh so often. […]
This was from Greg Mankiw’s blog: The role of the economist in discussions of public policy seems to me to be to prescribe what should be done in light of what can be done, politics aside, and not to predict what is “politically feasible” and then to recommend it. If you ever get annoyed with […]
When looking at Questionable Content (it is a webcomic – I’m addicted to watching the guy develop his drawing style!) I saw a link for a site named Kiva. To explain what this is I will leave it up to the Kiva about page. Kiva is the world’s first person-to-person micro-lending website, empowering individuals to […]
The cost of a barrel of oil is down to $35US and the exchange rate is loitering around $1NZ=$0.52US. Why is fuel at $1.63? A rough and ready look at the numbers suggests approximately $1.40 to me – although with a big error band (Note: less than 20c though). The rumours I’ve heard are: Refiners […]
This article from David Hargreaves on cheese prices got me thinking. He is saying that domestically produced food prices are too high. At first I completely disagreed with, especially when he says things like: There’s no doubt the excuse will come out about how much lower the Kiwi dollar is this year. And clearly that […]
David Farrar links to an article from 1 year ago – where economists were rather positive about the outlook for New Zealand. I was the same – I thought we would be out of a drought induced recession by September 2008. But things happened that we couldn’t foresee. Lehman brother’s collapse was the issue that […]