Alan Bollard Doesn’t Understand Economics

Alan Bollard repeats the common claim that the difference in economic performance between Australia and New Zealand is due to Australia’s abundance of natural resources: Speaking on TVNZ’s Q+A programme yesterday, Alan Bollard said Australia had been “blessed by God sprinkling minerals” and had handled its economy well. He said New Zealand would do better [...]

The Empirical Evidence Against Big Government

A nice, even-handed overview from Dan Mitchell for the Center for Freedom and Prosperity:

Rising Fertility in Highly-Developed Countries

I’ve always suspected that the link between economic development and fertility is more complicated than the standard story of inverse relationship. Increased economic opportunities increase the opportunity costs of having children, and this decrease fertility. Counterbalancing this, though, is the possibility that kids are a normal good in the sense that demand increases with income: [...]

Holcombe on the Foundations of Welfare Economics

I haven’t yet read it, but this paper by Randall Holcombe in the latest Review of Austrian Economics, ”A reformulation of the foundations of welfare economics“ looks like a very important contribution. The abstract: Neoclassical welfare economics takes an outcome-oriented approach that uses Pareto optimality as its benchmark for welfare maximization. When one looks at the [...]

The future is already here, and it’s reasonably evenly distributed

This video from 1981 (hat tip: Jerry Brito) shows the remarkable progress of information technology in recent years. That which which seemed amazing yesterday is taken for granted today. Hyperland (1990) from Douglas Adams is even more remarkable in how exciting it made hypertext seem. If we think back even further, someone 300 years ago [...]

Real, No-Fooling Socialism [updated]

The Alliance Party says the Government should take ownership of the Lane Walker Rudkin (LWR) Factory in Christchurch to prevent a disastrous loss of hundreds of jobs. Alliance Economic Development Spokesperson Quentin Findlay says it is vital that jobs and incomes are preserved to prevent mass unemployment in New Zealand. He says the Government should [...]