Matt blogs every now and then defending economic forecasters and always seems to draw out at least a couple of comments slagging off forecasters for being inaccurate. His reponse is that it’s not the numbers that matter but the qualitative analysis of risks and market direction. His defence came to mind when I was reading […]
What is a ‘want’ and what is a ‘need’? Do these things change over time and how do we provide for them? These are the issues being considered by Pablo at Kiwipolitico in a fashion that may confuse many economists. He says: The current phase of globalised capitalism brought with it the uncoupling of production […]
The Green party has recently released their policy program for helping the poor: [Turei’s] party wants to extend Working For Families tax credits by $60 a week for the poorest 140,000 households, reinstate the Training Incentive Allowance for university-level courses to help beneficiaries get educated and into work, raise the minimum wage to $15 an […]
An Australian cycling magazine claims that you could save $3.5 million over your lifetime if you ride instead of owning a car. They say that their calculations are solid and we have no reason to doubt them, but this is not a story about how great it is to ride a bike. Their calculations assume […]
Well, the NZ Association of Economists conference is done for 2011. It’s a chance for all economists to get together and talk nerdy without fear of social reprisals, although the food is another popular topic of conversation — it was pretty good this year, if you’re wondering. There were plenty of great presentations and star […]
I often get told that I must be a crazy free-marketeer because I’m an economist, as if there is something inherently pro-market about economic theory. So when I was reading an article in the JPE today it was refreshing to come across this: The question whether – and why – markets may perform better than […]