Archive for August 2008
Compensation and the ETS
Posted on: August 29, 2008
Although the blogs appear to be quite quiet about it, I’ve heard a number of people complaining about the government compensating people for the impact of the emissions trading scheme.
Effectively, people who are unhappy about it are telling me that such compensation appears to be pointless as it “cancels out the effect” of pricing carbon in the first place. Ultimately, we can discuss the issue in a little more detail then that. Lets try to figure out how it works – and discuss what this compensation implies, both in terms of achieving carbon/Kyoto liability funding goals, and in terms of social welfare.
August 08 NBNZ Business outlook
Posted on: August 28, 2008
July discussion here.
I don’t usually talk about the Business outlook stats – but I did last month, and I should this month (*).
Own activity expectations moved back into positive territory, business confidence is at its highest rate since November, and inflation expectations are at record levels (3.79% – even higher than the expectation numbers reported by the RBNZ for the September quarter).
This is a surprising result for the market, and makes our blogs pick of an economic recovery from September and annual consumer price index growth of 5% in September both seem a little more likely 😉
Lets ask if these numbers describe any of the issues we mentioned in July:
Good question!
Posted on: August 28, 2008
Over at Econlog Bryan Caplan asks a good question – he asks why economists who often rail against the free market will also often state that they strongly support civil liberties. Fundamentally he is asking, why do these people not support freedom to trade but do support freedom of expression.
Now I agree with Dr Caplan that economists should use the same tools to discuss civil issues as they do trade issues – any limits on civil liberties should be the result of externalities, asymmetric information on the value or relevance of ideas, or the undue power of an idea which in turn reduces social welfare (in the same way that in trade, people will rally against externalities, asymmetric information, and undue market power).
However, this does not suddenly imply that I am a stanch supporter of a completely free market – in the same way that I am not a stanch support of blanket calls to remove regulations that reduce civil liberties. Ultimately, in both cases there are trade-offs, and our ultimate goal is to maximise social welfare.
Lets discuss the “social-democrat economist’s bias” a bit more below the flap:
According to this Herald article the fact that annual food price growth fell from 8.2% to 7.6%, and the fact that increases stemmed from a lift in fresh vege prices implies that food price inflation is now cooling. Lets investigate this claim a little bit. (Note: I am ignoring the title “Relief on way for families as record food costs set to ease” as it is just silly – the economist they interview says food price growth will ease to 4%, not that the actual cost is going to ease.)
First the fresh vege claim. Lets try to remember here the the food price index is not seasonally adjusted. As a result there is an increase in these vege prices every July. To account for the seasonal pattern we can compare how much vege prices were up on a year earlier – in June they rose 8.7%, in July 5.4% (source). As a result, blaming vege’s for the increase in the food price index seems a little dishonest.
Now that we know this, we can just discuss the deceleration in annual food price growth.
Over at the Paul Krugman blog Dr Krugman criticises “conservatives” for treating capital gains as savings. This criticism followed an article by Tyler Cowan stating that people have treated capital gains as savings (article is found here).
Now pinch me if I’m wrong, but I can’t see the issue with
- People assuming that other people treat capital gains as savings if they do,
- People treating capital gains as savings if they expect them to be maintained
I do understand that their is a policy issue if peoples expectations that capital gains will be maintained is not realistic.
There is a difference though – both the above articles seem to be criticising people for the very idea of using capital gains as saving, or assuming that people do. However, sustained capital gains are savings, as it is additional wealth that is not used for consumption.
If we believe that there is an issue, it probably has to do with expectations. In the case of housing we have had a “bubble” where expectations were pushed away from fundamentals and towards speculation. In this case the problem does not stem from treating capital gains as savings – it stems from unrealistic expectations about the future price of the asset!
So why did peoples expectations of future house prices get out of whack in the USA, and now in NZ?
It is good to see the Frog Blog discussing happiness and policy – as fundamentally the goal of policy should be to promote the highest social happiness, not necessarily to promote the largest GDP number.
The article that Frog links to can be found here, and on Saturday there was an article in the paper by Chris Worthington on the subject as well. However, I get the feeling that Mr/Mrs/Miss Frog interprets this policy implication a little differently to me (and both are different to this previous post) – lets discuss.
Technology and the limited nature of non-renewable resources is an important issue in economics, the social sciences, and general policy making. It is an issue where each side of the political spectrum feels that the other side is stupid.
In an article we have linked to here, there are people that feel economists ignore the concept that our natural resources are limited (something that would be quite a fail, given that economics is the study of scarcity). However, there are also many people that feel a stroke over-confident about the ability of “technology” to evolve in a way that will allow us to substitute, easily, and cheaply away from these resources when the time comes.
In truth many people sit between these two extremes, believing that non-renewable resources will run out, there will be some cost, but that technology will provide some type of substitute. However, the value judgments involved in this opinion, especially when looking at technology, are not entirely clear. As a result, lets have a look at “technology” in more detail and see what framework we can come up with.
When I was listening to Radio NZ on Sunday I heard some people discussing why they thought “Think Big” was a good idea.
Although I agree with some of the points they raised, if those points are actually true (namely that they felt, given forecasts at the time, these projects would have been viable – and that there were substantial barriers to private entry) I also disagreed with large amounts of it.
One of the main things I disagreed with was the call that increased “self-sufficiency” in terms of steel and fuel improved our “balance of payments”. Now this is a claim I’ve heard from a number of “Think Big” supporters – and as a result it is a claim I plan to discuss here.
Posting trouble
Posted on: August 25, 2008
Hi all, For some reason I can’t post anything particularly long at the moment – as the site doesn’t like me.
As a result, none of the ideas I have for posts can be satisfactorily placed on the site. I can still comment though – its just taking a while.
If you want you can comment on this in the comments section of the post (ht Marginal Revolution, Econlog). I will try to get some posts up tonight.
No turning point in housing
Posted on: August 22, 2008
It is interesting to see the real estate blog calling a “turning point” in the housing market. For the sake of completeness, I’m going to attempt to call the opposite – namely I am going to put down the case for why the housing market will continue to remain slow.
Note that I am stating that it continues to remain slow – rather than making the even more specific argument that it will slow further. In order to defeat the idea that we have an upswing in the property market coming, I merely have to show there will be no upswing – after all it would be harder to record lower house sales volumes then we currently are 😉 . First, I will face up the facts that the real estate blog has put forward for an upswing, and then I will add a few more issues that I think will keep the real estate market depressed.
Also ultimately, the “heating up in the property market” appears to imply two things on the real estate blog, namely:
- Sales rising to normal levels,
- Steady house prices.
I will attempt to look at these issues separate – and I will discuss how these may trade-off.
Is economics not transparent enough?
I ask this question after reading this awesome post from the Freakonomics post (ht Antidismal) (Disclaimer: It is really only awesome if you are into economics 😛 ). Specifically, these two points that are often raised in presentations:
23. The motivation of the agents in this theory is so narrowly egotistic that it cannot possibly explain the behavior of real people.
24. The flabby economic actor in this impressionistic model should be replaced by the utility-maximizing individual.
Now as you might notice – these two criticisms contradict 🙂 .
Over time I have stated that one of the advantages of mainstream economics is that the assumptions it makes are transparent. However, if us economists can’t agree on the appropriate characterisation of an economic actor (and thereby we adjust our characterisation in an ad hoc manner), how can the results of our economic models be transparent (as what determines the fundamental “rational agent” is unclear)?
Discuss 🙂 (I will try to come up with an answer when I wake up 😉 )
Source: Stuff
There has been a lot of discussion surround the recent Boobs on Bikes parade in Auckland. Specifically, there is a belief that pornography, which is promoted by this parade, causes violent male crime.
This is a bold claim – a claim I know practically nothing about. However, I’m going to try and describe the way I would frame the issue for analysis, so that we can have a structured discussion on the issue.
Before doing so I would like to note that other New Zealand blogs are discussing the parade – they are linked to here: (Tumeke) (The Hand Mirror *) (No Right Turn *) (Liberty Scott) (No Minister) (Public Address). Now for the discussion:
The debt binge – who to “blame”?
Posted on: August 20, 2008
Has anyone else noticed the large swath of BNZ articles turning up around the internet, both on the Rates Blog and on Business Day (they also do more writing on their homepage). It is good – I like seeing economists getting out there and writing things.
Anyway, while I was looking through all these articles I noticed one by Tony Alexander on our “borrowing binge“. Now he is exactly right that households will, at some point, have to pay off debt. However, he does not cover the fact that households can also take on debt – as long as incomes are rising, households will be able to sustain larger and larger amounts of debt. This is an important point, and as a result I feel that his article appears to create more panic around debt levels then is really necessary.
In the following story on Stuff, we are told that a New Zealand wine maker has sold a whole bunch of wine for $3.50 a litre – an incredibly low price for the premium brand.
The reason for these “firesales” of wine we are told is:
these big sales come on the back of a bumper harvest this season, resulting in surplus stock
So winemakers have had a bumper season – and as a result they are having to sell some of their wine excessively cheaply. Doesn’t this seem weird.
Well it makes complete sense when we think either:
- There is competition in the wine industry or,
- The wine company is able to price discriminate between markets
Discuss 🙂
I was a bit confused when I heard a claim from Roger J Kerr that September quarter consumer price growth was only going to come in at 0.4%, leaving annual growth in the CPI at around 4%.
His justification for the weakening outlook for growth in the CPI was a softening in petrol prices – something that has indeed happened over the past four weeks. Although many of the point he raises are extremely relevant I feel that his conclusion (which implies that inflationary pressures are on the decline, that the RBNZ should feel more comfortable about cutting interest rates, and that the price increases in September will be that weak) appears to be well off the mark. Let me discuss why I think this:
agnitio
cpworthington
dant03
goonix
metrosideros
rauparaha
Robbie Allan
stevedoogue
Matt Nolan
The visible hand in economics 
Recent Comments