An article on Stuff reports that the government is choosing to do nothing about a potentially dangerous protein found in most milk produced by NZ cows. Apparently it would be very damaging to the NZ dairy industry to act on the rather uncertain scientific evidence, so the Food Safety Authority is downplaying the situation. The […]
Leftie liberals tend to be in favour of government intervention in markets. They tend to claim it prevents abuse of market power by powerful firms. However, these self-proclaimed left wing economists write that [l]abour-market flexibility, deregulation of the service industry, pension reforms and greater competition in university funding is not anti-equality. Such reforms … tend […]
As I’m sure you’ve heard by now, Radiohead have decided to give away their new album online in exchange for a voluntary donation. When one buys the album you choose how much you want to pay for it, with no lower or upper limit on how much you can pay. the idea of paying for […]
Economists are often misrepresented and misconstrued as being crazy, right-wing, free-market ideologues. However, economists themselves aren’t above painting each other in to a corner. This article about peoples’ views of economists quotes Joseph Stiglitz on Milton Friedman: [his] belief in the perfection of market economies, on models that assumed perfect information, perfect competition, perfect risk […]
Bjorn Lomborg seems to be causing a stir again with his new book, ‘Cool It’. I haven’t read the book but the essence of it seems to be that the dangers of climate change are over-rated. Lomborg also proposes that trying to cut emissions might be part of a good policy response to climate change, […]
On this blog we’ve talked a lot about how driving is undertaxed and overused. An aspect of this that we haven’t addressed yet is the funding mechanism for roads in New Zealand. At present, government spending on roading exceeds the revenue gained from road taxes. Essentially this means that road use is subsidised by all […]