I've never heard of EDwin Tanner, but he does a cute line in pictures if this is anything to go by. It went under the hammer at 45K (I think plus 20 odd per cent buyer's premium) last Dec. Details here .

Continue reading →

In the first two parts, the readers and I looked at the long list of sectors in Australia where there is a privileged minority who, with the help of the government, is in a position to extract more than their fair share of income out of the economy. Medical specialists, GPs, b...

Continue reading →

American blogger Matt Bruenig sparked an interesting debate recently with his claim that conservatives are better organised and less ideologically diverse than those on the left . This is a response. To those on the left, the American conservative movement appears as a leviath...

Continue reading →

http://youtu.be/CrczSkNSQR4 http://youtu.be/vo3pY_jmn2w

Continue reading →

As initially thought, the basic economic unit in Kolkata and West Bengal generally seems to be the family, not the individual. As a result, families invest in the education of their children and expect to share in the returns. Also, most businesses here are family businesses a...

Continue reading →

[caption id="attachment_33459" align="alignleft" width="646"] Why is this man trying to annoy Republicans?[/caption] Here's an extract from a recent article from the AFR which seems to be parading its private sector ideological friendliness in the way that the Oz started doing...

Continue reading →

We analyze patterns of bilateral financial investment using data on US investors' holdings of foreign bonds. We document a "history effect" in which the pattern of holdings seven decades ago continues to influence holdings today. 10 to 15% of the cross-country variation in US...

Continue reading →

I am visiting Kolkata this week, the Centre for the Study of Social Science Calcutta. It is a great chance to collect observations and cross-check economic theories on India. What I tend to do when visiting a new country is to assemble lots of preliminary hypotheses I have on...

Continue reading →

Marian Borges of The Age recently wrote seeking comment on an article on fire prevention which was subsequently written up by her and Peter Martin here . I didn't have time to really check out the article but sent her a response in which I expressed a kind of generalised scept...

Continue reading →

In part I the question was posed to the readers which privileges bothered them most about Australia and what they thought could be done to reduce them. In this part I want to start to consider the barriers by talking about the ‘face’ of any privilege and how this creates parti...

Continue reading →

[caption id="attachment_22323" align="alignright" width="307"] The 1947 Grand Ozzie winner holds our restrained Austin Holmes Memorial Trophy.[/caption] The Ozzies are, of course, Club Troppo's annual awards for think-tankery. Handed out ever since Troppo's founding in 1863, t...

Continue reading →

A question for you: how to combat privilege? As economists well know, we are all rent seekers who try to secure more and more privileges for ourselves and our families, be it monopoly rights (such as currently legally given to medical specialists or local pharmacies), over-pri...

Continue reading →

Have a look at this just-published article in PNAS by Jerome Dangerman and Hans Joachim Schellnhuber on the topic of climate change: Abstract The contemporary industrial metabolism is not sustainable. Critical problems arise at both the input and the output side of the complex...

Continue reading →

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="662"] Ambrogio Lorenzetti painted this fresco on Good Government in Palazzo Pubblico, Siena. It's a famous landmark in Western painting, argued by some to herald the Renaissance. Interesting that it should be so preoccupied by public g...

Continue reading →

Well I’m overseas at present but I’ve received my first request for a renewal of the annual Crikey subscription. And in these days of email it can all be done with very little work, so I’m opening subscriptions for a record breaking, seventh year. (I have no idea how long I’ve...

Continue reading →

I regularly get asked by young Australian academics nearing the end of their PhD about the tradeoffs inherent in different positions they can apply for: post-doc or tenure-track; academia or policy land; researcher or administrator; a school of economics or a research institut...

Continue reading →

Just before Xmas, I asked the readers at Core and at Troppo what they though the best bits of news of 2012 were. Many, including myself but also David Walker, Steve Dunera, Tel and Jim Rose thought that last year was another in a long period of strong economic development in t...

Continue reading →

Tim Soutphommasane has written a defence, or more accurately, a vigourous promotion of Australian Multiculturalism. I have opinions, which, with effort, are forced into the alliterative framework in the title. Of course, by way of disclaimer, I am absurdly fond of multicultura...

Continue reading →

Troppo readers may have noticed a Christmas "silly season" debate about an ill-advised assertion by Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs Jenny Macklin to the effect that she could live on Newstart Allowance (aka "the dole") if she had to. T...

Continue reading →

Jacqueline Maley has an article in today's Fairfax media musing about who might succeed Julia Gillard as Labor leader after an election loss later this year. It seems a tad premature in the circumstances, though only slightly more so than the subject of this post, which addres...

Continue reading →