Monthly Archives: March 2011

Multitasking: Productivity Effects and Gender Differences

Posted on March 29, 2011 by Nicholas Gruen

We examine how multitasking affects performance and check whether women are indeed better at multitasking. Subjects in our experiment perform two different tasks according to three treatments: one where they perform the tasks sequentially, one where they are forced to … Continue reading →

Posted in Gender, Health, Science | 3 Comments

Relationship between wages and employment

Posted on March 29, 2011 by Fred Argy

    Paul Krugman looks again at the relationship between deficit reduction, wages and employment in the USA.  http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/03/27/wages-and-employment-yet-again/ Yglesais says that a decline in deficit could lead to further employment expansion if it led to lower general wages (through a more flexible … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 7 Comments

The importance of improvisation in innovation

Posted on March 27, 2011 by Nicholas Gruen

In the conference I attended in Wellington NZ I saw a presentation by Tim McNamara a Wellington developer who spearheaded what seemed like a very successful volunteer web 2.0 effort that arose in the wake of the Christchurch earthquake. Using … Continue reading →

Posted in Economics and public policy, Web and Government 2.0 | 3 Comments

Missing Link Friday — Paywall Edition

Posted on March 25, 2011 by Don Arthur

I love newspapers and read lots of them. But I don’t love any one newspaper so much that I’d pay hundreds of dollars a year to read it online. The kind of package I could be persuaded to pay for … Continue reading →

Posted in Media, Missing Link | 7 Comments

The Dunera and modernism in Australia: and an update

Posted on March 25, 2011 by Nicholas Gruen

As you may know, the Dunera brought a bunch of people out to Australia who settled in very nicely and added to the place.  A coach of olympic runners, numerous professors, some rich entrepreneurs. I don’t know if Fred Lowen … Continue reading →

Posted in History, Life | 3 Comments

Let them out before they escape!

Posted on March 23, 2011 by Ken Parish

Retired diplomat Bruce Haigh has a valid point when he refers to Gillard government threats to refuse to issue visas on “character grounds” to Christmas Island asylum seeker rioters as “revengeful”.  More accurately it’s cynical playing to the populist gallery … Continue reading →

Posted in Politics - national | 14 Comments

Progressivity is not the same as redistribution

Posted on March 22, 2011 by Don Arthur

Peter Whiteford is one of my favourite commenters. He rarely joins a thread without adding useful data or some telling insight. On Monday he showed up on Matt Yglesias’ blog to explain the difference between progressivity and redistribution in the … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 31 Comments