Archive for the ‘Political economy’ Category
Compulsory redundancy payments
Posted on: December 12, 2008
I see there is some talk of compulsory redundancy payments after this sad story.
Now even though it would be nice if those people hadn’t been left high and dry after all their years of commitment, it is important that we try to get an objective idea about the costs associated with the scheme.
Read the rest of this entry »
I have no doubt that my views here will be contentious – but they need to be put forward nonetheless.
I think that Treasury (or some mix of part of Treasury and IRD) should function at arms length in the same way as the Reserve Bank, and that they should set tax rates in the same way that the RBNZ sets interest rates.
Now, let me discuss why.
A world without growth?
Posted on: December 5, 2008
My favourite article of NewScientist’s series is Herman Daly’s. The father of modern ecological economics lashes out at the way economists ignore the source of inputs to production and the capacity of the waste sinks that we have. As he puts it, we should imagine the economy as a system within the world’s ecosystem. Read the rest of this entry »
Poverty and violence in Africa
Posted on: December 3, 2008
A recent article on VoxEU discusses the link between poverty and violence in Africa. It’s a tricky topic because there are good arguments to be made for causation in both directions and the direction of causation matters hugely for aid policy. Read the rest of this entry »
The Standard has been stating that tax cuts should be “fairer”. Now in principle I have no problem with things being “fairer” – however, defining what is fair very is subjective, and what the Standard sees as fair and what I see as fair might be different.
Still, both the Standard and No Right Turn go on to quantify what they feel is an injustice – the fact that a greater proportion of the tax cut will go to the wealthy. However, for what they are saying to be true, the wage everyone is paid following a tax cut must not change (or must change by the same lump sum) regardless of their current income – yet this is not the case.
Many moons ago we discussed tax incidence – I think it is time to run with this again, taking for granted some of the assumptions about the labour market that the Standard has provided us with over time.
The DomPost contained an article on the potential for metering Wellington’s water supply. The question is asked: should Wellingtonians pay for their water? This issue is a hot topic, having been discussed at Kiwiblog, Infometrics and TVHE earlier this year.
Historically, water has been provided for by the various Wellington councils out of rates. Water is not currently metered, which implies that regardless of how much water each household takes, their rates do not vary. This arrangement has led many to believe water is in some way ‘free’, as they are not forced to pay for their specific usage and the cost is embodied in rates which cover many council services across many households. With water use of 400 litres per person per day in Wellington, relative to the national average of 160 litres, it appears water users here are not internalising the cost of their water usage.
Current arrangements do not allow for the pricing of scarcity. Read the rest of this entry »
Over at the Standard they discuss Bill English’s statement that we will become a “nation of savers”. Now their attack line is relatively weird, especially given that he is just saying that if we need a bigger deposit to buy a house we will have to save it – he doesn’t say we should take on policy that imply “save more”.
However, he illustrates a strange view that National have of savings when he suggests that tax cuts will lead to an increase in savings – it will increase private savings but it is also dis-savings for the government, hence it will lower national savings (unless you believe it will magically cause a massive increase in economic activity).
Obviously the term “savings” is being used in a loose way – which is also “loaded” in the sense that these people assume that an “increase” in savings is a good thing.
I think it would be good if we review a series of posts which was (and eventually will be extended into) our “productivity series“. In the four posts here we discuss Kiwisaver, national savings, and what savings is.
Nats to bail out big business?
Posted on: November 27, 2008
I was slightly concerned when I saw the headline on stuff this morning “Nats eye bailout of big business”
If the government is saying ex ante that they will bail out big businesses I would be concerned as this has the potential to cause a moral hazard problem. This is where firms know they will get bailed out and thus make riskier decisions. The actual quotes from Bill English don’t appear the be as explicit as I originally thought they might be
“You’re in an environment when almost anything any government could contemplate doing is getting done somewhere in the world,” he said.
“There is a small chance that events that have transpired elsewhere could transpire here. You can’t ignore that and so we need to give some thought to the extreme event.”
Are quotes like this enough to give the big companies in NZ enough comfort that they will bailed out? Only time will tell….
PPPs? Yes, please…..maybe
Posted on: November 26, 2008
The Standard don’t see the point in them and Fletcher Building would rather have a standard construction contract that doesn’t transfer risk to them and doesn’t require them to incur costs setting the arrangement up.
I’m FAR from an expert on the issue of PPPs, and there may be some valid concerns using them for roads in New Zealand. However it is important to recognize that PPPs can take many forms with different levels and types of risk shared between the two parties. One of the key purposes of a PPP is to let the party that can best manage each source of risk bear it. if designed properly this doesn’t sound like a bad idea, if they aren’t designed properly it’s a bad idea!
Anyways, sorry I can’t provide more definitive commentary about this, if anyone wants to learn more about PPPs and there purpose/benefits I recommend checking out this report from Deloitte. It’s a couple years old now and I haven’t read it in a while so can’t really comment on its contents, but I remember it being a good coverage:)
How does a fiscal boost work?
Posted on: November 25, 2008
This is an important question, given that we are in a situation where governments around the world are looking to loosen fiscal policy. Tyler Cowen succinctly lists the four (five) ways that fiscal policy influences the economic situation – note that this ignores issues of the quality or distribution of spending. These are:
- Generate some investments which are worthwhile on their own terms,
- If the broader monetary aggregates are falling, because of either a credit crunch or a liquidity trap, a fiscal boost can keep aggregate demand from deteriorating,
- fiscal boost can provide a beneficial “sunspot” in a multiple equilibrium model, thereby moving everyone to the higher output equilibrium,
- If spending needs to fall, a fiscal boost can postpone this fall,
- The economy needs a boost to aggregate demand and since monetary policy isn’t working any more, fiscal policy has to step in (which he notes requires 2 and 4 anyway).
So what do I have to add – only a little bit.
The previous Labour government bestowed a legacy upon NZ that included the first ever review of broadcasting regulations.
Essentially the question being asked in this review is: does the current market situation warrant government intervention?
It appears that the UK wants to spend their way out of a recession. The US has a plan too, as does New Zealand, Europe, and Australia. Governments all across the world want to spend their way out of a recession – however, there is only three ways they can get the money together.
- Increase taxes – knocking out any stimulus anyways,
- Borrow,
- Print money.
Assume that monetary policy will act to constrain any excessive “money printing” that will be going on this leaves us with borrowing.
If all the governments in the world want to increase their borrowing, this will increase demand for global credit, which will push up interest rates – won’t it? This will lead to an increase in private savings, and will just move around the allocation of resources rather than creating wealth.
There is no free lunch when it comes to “getting out of a recession” – give me the “market failure” we are facing, then we can talk about improving outcomes!
Over at the Standard they discuss one of Lord Keynes’s “real ideas” – namely an international organisation that tries to push savers to spend, by buying the things borrowers save. When I put it this way the idea sounds ridiculous – which it is.
This unusual view comes from a belief that a trade deficit or surplus is a “imbalance” that needs to be “solved” by a benevolent organisation. This is of course rubbish, nations, like individuals, should be able to run trade balances or surpluses based on the preferences of the individuals involved.
Now I haven’t heard this idea before, and if Keynes did come up with it I think it has more to do with the elitist world view of the Cambridge school combined with some foggy mercantilist sentiment than with the practical relevance of such a policy.
“Imbalances” that are caused by market failures are the ones we should solve – not arbitrary imbalances that we have assumed exist because we want to regulate.
Ultimately, there has been a disjoint between risk and return in some areas of society, a problem that has been able to occur because of large information asymmetries across the financial market. Transparency of information and wider education surround risk are the best ways to improve outcomes in the financial market – not arbitrary regulation based on a view that “all countries should run a trade balance”.
When not to stimulate
Posted on: November 18, 2008
Sorry for linking to the Standard twice in one day, however they have written about a couple of things I wish to touch on recently. In a recent post Irish Bill states that:
One of the things I like about being left wing is how often the best moral decision is also the best economic decision.
Take economic stimulus for example.
Now, on the first point I would state that the best policy decision and the “morally right” decision always match when you are a utilitarian like me. Getting the two to separate in anyway involves making some pretty specific assumptions and what a “economic decision” is and what a “moral decision” is.
Still this isn’t the point I was interested in discussing – I was interested in Irish Bill’s belief that a stimulus package is good policy in the New Zealand environment. In a credit driven slowdown like the one we are facing a stimulus is not the way to fix things as we are not suffering from a “demand deficiency” – or at least not the type that cannot be solved with monetary policy.
CPW has requested that we cover the Standard’s coverage of the National-Act coalition agreement, specifically this section:
National/Act agree to close the ‘income gap’ between Australia and NZ by 2025, requiring ‘3% productivity growth per year’. Which is just economic techno-babble. What ‘income gap’ are they talking about? GDP per capita or wages or what? And how would a faster rate of productivity growth close this gap? Anyone who knows what productivity is (the amount of wealth produced in a unit of work) knows that merely increasing productivity doesn’t necessarily boost GDP or wages. GDP = productivity x work done. So, GDP not only depends on productivity it also depends on how many people are in work. And boosting productivity doesn’t lead automatically to higher wages – wages are determined by supply and demand in the labour market, nothing to do with productivity. In fact, productivity grows faster when employment drops because it’s the low quality workers that lose their jobs first and lower quality capital that sits idle first, but wages don’t go up because there is more slack in the labour market.
After reading it we felt that a non-biased explanation of the “economic techno-babble” was in order.
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