Archive for March 2008
Biofuel regulation and carbon prices
Posted by: Matt Nolan on: March 28, 2008
From the Hive we see that the government may be having trouble getting its mandatory biofuel regulation through parliament. Anyone that knows me will know that this makes me glad, not because I’m a climate change denialist (I’m willing to trust the experts on this one), not because I’m concerned about biofuel not having [...]
Carbon taxes in the NYT
Posted by: rauparaha on: March 27, 2008
Lots of people are ripping in to Monica Prasad after her op-ed in the NYT on carbon taxes. She says that
Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden have had carbon taxes in place since the 1990s, but the tax has not led to large declines in emissions in most of these countries… [T]he insight they provide is [...]
Do we need a recession?
Posted by: Matt Nolan on: March 27, 2008
People are talking insistently about recession in New Zealand. Driving the recent spate of concerns is the deterioration in consumer confidence over the last three months. All three of the indicators we follow (Colmar Brunton, Roy Morgan, and Westpac McDermott-Miller) have shown a significant deterioration in consumer sentiment since the start of 2008.
Now [...]
Hard headed truths about pollution
Posted by: rauparaha on: March 26, 2008
I read recently about the Vélib’ program that Paris is running and what a boon it is for the environment. Apparently Ken Livingstone is keen on making London more bicycle friendly, and cities like Copenhagen are already full of cyclists. The decrease in pollution as a result of the reduction in cars must be quite [...]
Prostitutes versus easy sex
Posted by: Matt Nolan on: March 26, 2008
I don’t know why I was reading both the About Town blog and the Times, but I was and now I have to write about it.
Mrs Saunders raises an interesting question, namely:
If, as most people seem to be saying, New Zealand women are a bunch of sex predators who will do anything for a double [...]
Charitable ignorance, part II
Posted by: rauparaha on: March 25, 2008
A couple of weeks ago I asked why people might avoid finding out how worthy a charity is. People know that they’ll give to worthy charities and yet they shy away from finding out that a charity is worthy so that they avoid giving. Why might this be?
There aren’t many situations in which rational agents [...]
Housing and the value of individuality
Posted by: Matt Nolan on: March 25, 2008
The government is introducing ways to reduce the compliance costs associated with building homes. By doing this, the government can increase the supply of properties, lowering the price of houses, and thereby increasing housing affordability.
No doubt this will be an interesting policy to look over, however this is not what I am going to [...]
Sony backs down on Fresh Start
Posted by: rauparaha on: March 22, 2008
Apparently Sony has backed down on it’s proposed $50 charge for removing the junkware that usually comes preinstalled on computers. The new Fresh Start option when you buy your Vaio laptop allows you to choose to have a clean OS, without all the usual trial software and other adware, for an extra $50 over the [...]
Growth and happiness
Posted by: rauparaha on: March 22, 2008
The Standard was at Joe Stiglitz’ talk in Wellington last week and was particularly interested an audience member’s question about growth. The question is whether economists focus too much on growth, to the detriment of human happiness. It’s an interesting and worthy question, but not one that hasn’t been considered by economists. There are two [...]
Social devolution or individual freedom?
Posted by: Matt Nolan on: March 20, 2008
Here I am going to discuss an issue that is way over my head – but is extremely important for the practical application of economic concepts. I am going to discuss how changes in economic policies can influence social structure.
I decided that I would attempt to write about this after reading this post. [...]
iTunes: friendly or foxy?
Posted by: rauparaha on: March 20, 2008
It seems Apple’s thinking about giving iPod owners free access to the iTunes download service! Are they just good souls or is there a more sinister, profit-seeking motive behind their announcement (tongue firmly in cheek)? The first thought of every economist when they see something like this is to scream “price discrimination”. It looks like [...]
March 08: Fed cuts rates to 2.25
Posted by: Matt Nolan on: March 19, 2008
Another month, another 75 basis point rate cut by the Fed. This is (close to) what the market expected, so I can’t imagine that it would have much impact on anything. However, the statement was interesting.
Does anyone else find it interesting that the Fed cut rates by 75 basis points but still wrote [...]
Economic uncertainty – time to get scared?
Posted by: Matt Nolan on: March 19, 2008
Today I noticed two very different stories about the outlook for the New Zealand economy. From Bernard Hickey (h.t. Kiwiblog) we have a dramatised version of what ANZ and BNZ are saying about economic conditions. From Berl we have a more moderate [...]
‘Right’ by any other name
Posted by: rauparaha on: March 19, 2008
Many critics of economics accuse it of being an amoral pursuit. Conversely, many economists praise the amoral nature of their discipline. It is easy to think that there must be more to this argument than whether economics is morally ‘good’ or not. After all, that seems like an awfully circular and pointless argument. One might [...]
Technical recession – them be strong words!
Posted by: Matt Nolan on: March 18, 2008
I’m suspicious about Dr Cullen’s claim that we are heading for a “technical recession“. I agree that we are heading towards a period of sub-trend growth. We might be heading towards a period where we have a consumption based recession (slow growth, consumption stalls, unemployment rises), which would be a big deal.
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