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Club 1: Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Cameroon, China, Cuba, Djibouti, Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, Malaysia, Mali, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Qatar, Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, South Africa, Sri Lanka. Club 2: Bolivia, Brazil, Gabon, Ghana, Guatemala, In...

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Here's a piece of blatant and unashamed recycling. I run a discussion board for my Intro to Public Law students where they're welcome to post and discuss news items with a public law angle. Over the weekend one of them posted a link to the current stoush between Defence Minist...

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"The hallmark of economics," writes Geoffrey Luck , "is not its ability to forecast the future but to explain things." So when economists or others offer advice about the future of the housing market, is it best to ignore them? In 1995 economists Steven Bourassa and Patric Hen...

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I've always thought that autism is the doozy of mental illnesses. Many others come in 'episodes', and disabilities don't get in the way of human bonding. But autism, being related precisely to human bonding, does. And parents of autistic children (so it seems to me) must despa...

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Andrew Norton has asked me to post a link to a survey he's running on the policy views of those willing to identify with political labels such as classical liberal, conservative, social democrat. Looks interesting.

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Brad Delong's (re)pos t provides a nice example of how capriciously the media create by analysing the 'spin' they keep telling us it's their job to cut through. In this no-man's land primeval biases can run wild. One such bias is that the right are 'sound', that it would be so...

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Here is a blog post devoted to what you Londonophiles have always wanted to do - share with Troppodillians your deep knowledge of London. Ill be in London from the 31st of March to the 2nd or 3rd of April and wondered if any Troppodillians can suggest a place to stay. Im tryin...

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The above is the title of an op-ed piece by Roger Cohen in today's New York Times . In it, he examines a bipartisan statement containing recommendations for settling the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. It's been presented to President Obama and the signatories are not only well-k...

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I'm in Bejing at present - ironic when I read of the British Government's latest plans . The Government has announced plans to monitor people's communications on social-networking sites. The new proposals will see sites such as Facebook, MySpace and Bebo compelled to retain in...

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A few weeks ago, Joseph Stiglitz wrote an article ("A Bank Bailout That Works") for The Nation . He was highly critical of the policy decisions taken to date by both administrations. Even though he didn't at the time have the details of Geithner's latest plan, its core princip...

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Regarding last night's Four Corners about Marcus Einfeld's disgrace , there are exactly two things to be said. The first is that it's a complete mystery why he approached the interview, made with Sarah Ferguson just before sentencing, in the way that he did. It would have been...

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Black to play L De Veauce vs Keene 6. ...? See game for solution. A seven move game. Not hard to see the answer, but kind of humorous nevertheless, especially given that this was a near grandmaster standard game.

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[caption id="" align="alignright" width="399" caption="A bit of feline behavioural economics "] [/caption] Generally it's a good thing to leave people to decide what they should do and respect their decisions. But a bit of friendly paternalistic 'nudging' never did much harm d...

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I raised the issue a few weeks ago of what might happen to GDP output and public debt if the discretionary stimulus package were simply cut off in mid-stream. I argued that this would lead to higher numbers on jobless benefits and much lower corporate profits. Could it also pr...

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I'm doing some research on IP and particularly on patents. As in other areas of economics we tend to debate IP according to well arranged protocols. There's a 'pro' and an 'anti' or a 'more' and a 'less' party with each accusing the other of not getting it. There's lots legiti...

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Recently, Jeremy Sammut of the Centre for Independent Studies has had a number of opinion pieces published in the Australian Welfare saps the will to save on March 5 and "Welfare killed saving" (December 18) and a longer paper published by CIS - A Streak of Hypocrisy: Reaction...

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Peter Klein at Organizations and Markets offers some calming thoughts on the AIG bonus debate . 1. The main lesson is that AIG should never, ever have been bailed out with taxpayer dollars. I said that at the beginning, and I stand by it even more today. AIG should have declar...

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Theres a laminated sign that sits over the sink in the office kitchen. It says : There is NO magical kitchen fairy please clean up your dishes yourself. I hadnt really paid attention to it before, but noticing it for the first time the other day floored me. It was after all a...

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A couple of weeks ago recently retired High Court Justice Michael McHugh entered the public debate on whether Australia should have a legislated bill of rights. The debate (such as it is) was one of the "outcomes" of the Rudd government's 2020 Summit, and more recently led to...

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All subjects are linked to crocodiles. Just ask the NT News ( via Flickr ) High Court challenge jeopardises $900 bonus - Sydney Morning Herald (19 March) - THE High Court has agreed to hear a challenge to the legality of the Federal Government's proposed $900 tax bonus to 8.7...

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Mark Crosby explains - I couldn't agree more. The RBA released minutes of their most recent meeting yesterday. Debate in the press today about the merits of the RBA keeping their powder dry, or whether they should have cut further. The minutes end with The question for policy...

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The Slave Trade and the Origins of Mistrust in Africa by Nathan Nunn, Leonard Wantchekon NBER Abstract: We investigate the historical origins of mistrust within Africa. Combining contemporary household survey data with historic data on slave shipments, we show that individuals...

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It seems incredible, hard to believe, but we've got ten double passes to give away to Highly Suss , which looks like fun. I'd go myself if I wasn't going to be overseas. If you're planning to be in Melbourne for the 4th of April, then let us know and we can send you a ticket t...

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[caption id="" align="alignright" width="470" caption="July 20, 2007, MACQUARIE Bank chairman David Clarke yesterday was forced into a staunch defence of the controversial bonus scheme that delivered $200 million this year to its top 13 senior executives following an unprecede...

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This man is Dave Bloustien. Why should you be interested? Because you will always remember this man's face as the first sign that being a reader of Club Troppo made you an insider , somone in the know and on the money . Yes, folks, due to our extraordinary buying power, our pu...

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Michael Duffy liked my most recent column for the Fin and invited me onto his Counterpoint program where we had a bit of a chat about various things - including Oscar Wilde - though the topic was the permanent income hypothesis and what will happen to the handouts. In any even...

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It it not necessary to be a fan of the Rudd administration or the alcopops tax to deplore the horse-trading that is going on to hold the Government to ransom on legislation to ratify the tax. Abuse of the Senate is not a novely and the man from Tasmania was probably the worst...

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From Today's Crikey Trashing Pauline Hanson was a class act Jeff Sparrow, editor of Overland writes: Yesterday, Jonathan Green asked the excellent question: if photos of a youthful Peter Costello mugging in his Speedos found their way to a newspaper editor, would the images tu...

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I've been sent two free tickets to an advance screening of the film Elergy, but unfortunately it turns out I can't make it. So please email me on nicholas AT gruen DOT com DOT au and if you can pop round to my Port Melbourne house to pick up the tickets, you can have them. The...

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The respected Institute of Fiscal Studies has raised the spectre of a two-nation Britain, after finding that some of the poorest households are facing much higher inflation rates than average. You may catch a preview of the publication in http://www.ifs.org.uk:80/publications/...

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Australia doesnt really do social insurance. For many years income protection policy has focussed on poverty alleviation rather than protection against negative income shocks. The forthcoming recession might be a time when we begin to regret this model. As the graph below show...

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Bruce Bradbury and frequent commenter - though mostly a while ago - Peter Whiteford, both distinguished academics at the Uni of NSW emailed me asking if we'd be interested in having them as contributors. The answer was 'yes' and so you should expect a post from one of these fi...

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One of the things that has surprised me in this first of all blogged financial crises is that there's been relatively little talk of the move from a uni-polar to a multi-polar world. Long periods of global progress have tended to be accompanied by a hegemonic world power able...

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[caption id="attachment_34331" align="alignleft" width="347"] The earth: it's all about YOU![/caption] Hayek argued that were were naturally selfish. In fact he proposed the opposite - that human beings are naturally solidaristic, by the 'natural morality' that evolved in preh...

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I was looking for something else and came upon this review I wrote for the CIS magazine Policy in its pre-Andrew Norton days. I'm always surprised when I read old stuff. It's never as I recall it. Always a bit better or worse than I thought. Anyway, I remember being a bit unha...

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There is an interesting new boy on the block! Gerard Henderson's Media Watch Dog is sure to be stimulating read because he has a good memory and he knows where a lot of bodies are buried. He has a long and honourable history as a media watcher, starting in 1988 with a print ve...

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Andrew Leigh links argues that social policy makers should use an evidence hierarchy to sift through policy relevant research. The idea of a hierarchy of evidence (or ' levels of evidence ') comes from the evidence based medicine movement. As Andrew explains, there are thousan...

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In a little over a week I'll be heading for Europe and back via Bejing. So I need around 40 hours of really good iPodian entertainment. Suggestions are gratefully received. In the spirit of reciprocity, I can tell you that " Not without you " on life matters is a wonderful thi...

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I've been enjoying Brad Delong's agro for a while. Luigi Zingale is a very smart guy with some interesting proposals. I'm reading an excellent article of his right now on " The Future of Securities Regulation ". But Delong is not impressed with his line that 'we have a banking...

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The following is taken from http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2009/03/ken-rogoff.html---. It is a comment by Paul Krugman to the many people, such as Ken Rogoff, who are anxious to pin our economic problems on the deficit. He says: The stimulus package wont prol...

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The Daily Show With Jon Stewart M - Th 11p / 10c CNBC Gives Financial Advice Daily Show Full Episodes Important Things With Demetri Martin Political Humor Economic Crisis

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Well, I guess, given their inability to access funding it doesn't really matter. But remember those days when Aussie Home Loans and Wizard were slugging it out as the two mortgage securitisers taking it to the big banks - together they shaved around two percentage points off t...

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IIRC Keynesian economist AGL Shackle coined the expression "the world is kaleidic" which is a nice way of saying that one can go from the heights of optimism to the depths of despair by just changing a few things. Economics and other things with positive feedback loops in them...

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I was asked to do this column at short notice today. I had in mind incorporating a bunch of things I didn't manage to do. In any event, for the record, here it is. If I get the time, more on this shortly. Will the cash splashes lift the economy? When they were first announced,...

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In the February issue of Quadrant , Steven Kates laments the resurrection of Keynes , and warns his readers not to fall for the doctrines of a man who denied one of the key laws of economics. According to Kates, Say's Law is a proposition that since 1936 every economist has be...

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An amusing post by Greg Ransom on Taking Hayek Seriously. Based on the story of Hayek's visit to Australia in 1976 as told by Ron Kitching with some more background on Catallaxy . In brief, Ron Kitching and the late Roger Randerson organised financial backing for a month-long...

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The media are supposed to be finding out and telling us what is going on. They don't do that of course. They spend most of their time reporting on various lamely constructed dramas. The main meta-narrative is racecalling the parties or what I call pub-talk. Is Kevin or Malcolm...

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Yesterday Nicholas Gruen asked : What single book is the best introduction to your field your field for lay people? In the field of welfare reform I'd recommend Thomas Fowle's 1898 book The Poor Law . Progress comes slowly in social policy. Much of what passes for innovation i...

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From Sydney Morning Herald (I'm sure they won't mind) The strict political neutrality of Australia's Governor-General is a crucially important democratic principle, but one whose mention usually elicits a combination of boredom and baffled incomprehension from most people. It'...

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"The developing world, especially China, ran huge trade surpluses assisted by an overvalued currency." Ehem - try 'undervalued currency'. Malcolm Turnbull on the causes of the crisis. However perhaps it was a misprint. Anyway I just discovered this - no doubt others have been...

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Across Latin America, governments are turning to conditional cash transfers to overcome poverty and inequality. In a recent post, Andrew Leigh asks whether we should trial the approach in Australia. Conditional cash transfer programs attack poverty in two ways. Like income sup...

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Michael Neilsen links to a list of answers to this question: What single book is the best introduction to your field or specialization within your field for laypeople? He says it's a gold mine. Perhaps it is. On economics it has just one link - to Henry Hazlitt's Economics in...

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News that South Australian Premier Mike Rann is contemplating a High Court challenge to the federal Murray-Darling water deal is good news for constitutional lawyers, because it would result in the resolution of a question raised before Federation but never litigated. Such a c...

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Well the previous puzzle seems to have intrigued a few people. This one is dead difficult (for people of fair average stupidity such as myself anyway). Black plays two important moves. The first is the one I guessed. The second I wouldn't have guessed in a million years, but o...

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I was at a function yesterday with a bunch of economists - amongst some other people - and was annoyed to note that there wasn't much push-back against the casual assumption that the cash handouts had not worked - that people had just saved the money they were given. It all se...

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Keating: a chance to remake the global financial system Global financial confidence, once destroyed, requires myr­iad positive events and a heavy convergence of them to counter ambient pessimism and gloom. The recent series of government packages, notwithstanding their scale a...

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This one features gratuitous swearing so I'm linking to it rather than posting directly on Troppo. Don't want to lower the tone around here too much. Probably not safe for work.

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The monthly RePec rankings for Australia are in again. Always an exiting moment for the professional economists in Australia to see whether their latest publications have already been spotted by the automatic search routines, whether they have been cited as often as they deser...

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While it's very unedifying when people are stirred up, I enjoy the odd 'meta' discussion, or at least thinking about what the right principles are for discussion in the blogosphere. So I was intrigued to see them eloquently expounded in Crikey today - by virtue of the publicat...

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Treasury always supports foreign investments. It believes resources should flow to wherever they earn the best return. It says overseas investment is especially important for Australia because we depend on foreigners to fund our capital expansion. And in these financially stra...

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By yearend, investors of all stripes were bloodied and confused, much as if they were small birds that had strayed into a badminton game. -- Warren Buffett

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White to play and win. A very natty move.

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Patriotic Sydney siders who want to know how a simple bit of tax policy can put a bit of rocket fuel in our economy should pop along to the Reserve Bank at 12.45 for an explanation at an Economics Society of NSW function. I'll be doing a presentation Are you still feeling luck...

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