Archive for February 2008
The equity-efficiency trade-off, what’s the point?
Posted by: Matt Nolan on: February 29, 2008
Sorry about the constant methodology talk lately, rauparaha and me have just have methodology on the mind
I wish to focus on a subject that is a little different than the rationality definition that my esteemed colleague has been looking at. I plan to look at the equity-efficiency trade-off.
The trade-off between equity and [...]
The great un-revolution
Posted by: rauparaha on: February 28, 2008
As much as I hate link farmers, I can’t help reposting this great paragraph from the Positive Economist. It just ties in so well to the recent discussion on this blog about rationality and behavioural economics!
Behavioral economics is possibly the least revolutionary revolution ever to hit an academic discipline, because, as Scheiber is alluding to, [...]
Wherefore art thou, rationality?
Posted by: rauparaha on: February 27, 2008
I’ve been bombarded recently with people telling me about economists’ perception of rationality and the wonders of behavioural economics. The term homo economicus gets thrown around with gay abandon as a generic criticism of economics. Oliver Woods claimed that rationality means having perfect information and being entirely self-interested. At the other end of the scale, [...]
Random economist prediction: A sidenote
Posted by: Matt Nolan on: February 27, 2008
Kiwiblog discusses the musings of an economist at a Business Roundtable retreat in this post.
Now of course the economist had a number of good points (it is an economist after all), but there are a few points I would like to discuss in a little bit of detail (although not much ).
The 90 [...]
The economics of Mrs Lovett
Posted by: Matt Nolan on: February 27, 2008
Image courtesy of Rose Colligan.
Most economic research is a process of adding to ideas that have already been thought of. In Mrs Lovett’s case her grand plan involves adding concepts to Sweeney Todd’s welfare policy.
Now if you haven’t seen the movie yet, this might be a bit more of a spoiler than the previous [...]
Yes, it IS the referee’s fault!
Posted by: rauparaha on: February 26, 2008
You always here about how biased referees are from football fans. However, Matt and Agnitio are model football fans and seem to rarely criticise the referee, even when Liverpool are getting walloped. Now Robin Hanson links to a study which gives them a reason to lambast the ref a bit more:
Referees, who are appointed to [...]
Inflation psychology
Posted by: Matt Nolan on: February 26, 2008
‘Inflation psychology’ was the topic of a recent inflation update by Stephen Cecchetti (h.t. Freakonomics blog). In it he mentions that people seem to have selective memories regarding price changes – namely people are likely to remember price increases more than price falls.
I once mentioned such a potential bias when I commented on Kiwiblogblog, [...]
Taking a look in the mirror
Posted by: rauparaha on: February 25, 2008
Over at NZQuest, Oliver Woods claims that economics
…works around perfect conditions and universal application of models and theories developed many years ago to any economic problem, believing history, society and all sorts of other factors undermine the ‘homo economicus’, or the supposedly rational profit-driven man who thinks entirely in his own self-interest and only helps [...]
The demand curve slopes downwards – New Zealand petrol edition
Posted by: Matt Nolan on: February 25, 2008
Stuff mentions a survey done by Research New Zealand on petrol prices and household consumption of petrol. In the survey they found a number of results that seem to follow the basic idea of a demand curve.
From the article the results were:
32% of people said they consumed less fuel since the price rose (I [...]
Caps on healthcare
Posted by: rauparaha on: February 24, 2008
Greg Mankiw reports that a lady in Britain was prevented from supplementing her state-provided healthcare with private care. Apparently the NHS favours equality over efficiency:
Officials said that allowing Mrs. Hirst and others like her to pay for extra drugs to supplement government care would violate the philosophy of the health service by giving richer patients [...]
Permanent and Temporary Shocks: Buy No Petrol Day
Posted by: agnitio on: February 22, 2008
I saw an interesting piece on Breakfast this morning (now that I have a “real” job I’m actually up that early) about how today is buy no petrol day.
Apparently the idea is if we all buy no petrol today this will “hit the petrol company’s bottom lines” and make them clean up their act or [...]
Sweeney Todd’s welfare policy
Posted by: Matt Nolan on: February 22, 2008
After recently watching the movie ‘Sweeney Todd‘ one question popped into my mind, is the welfare policy he derives optimal? Below the flap I will discuss his welfare policy – if you haven’t seen the movie or watched the broadway show then read at your own risk. Although I don’t talk about the [...]
Cap-and-tax vs carbon trading
Posted by: rauparaha on: February 21, 2008
The Congressional Budget Office reported recently on its comparison of a cap-and-trade program to a carbon tax program. The one-line conclusion is that carbon taxes are cheaper and simpler, but caps give more certainty.
Torres and inflation expectations
Posted by: Matt Nolan on: February 20, 2008
I am a Liverpool supporter (the football club), I’m proud to admit it . While I was reading an interview with Fernando Torres today, I ran into this gem of a line when discussing Benitez’s rotation policy:
“It is normal to rest. We players never want to, but if the manager says so, [...]
The economist’s economic growth bias
Posted by: Matt Nolan on: February 19, 2008
Reading the titles of the last two posts (the birth rate vs the growth rate and growth forecasts and government) I realised that neither rauparaha or myself defined what ‘growth’ we were talking about. Like all economists, we took ‘Growth’ to be synonymous with growth in gross domestic product.
Could this possibly imply that economists [...]
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