Club Troppo

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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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