I reproduce here a fine review of what seems like a fine book. I'm not buying the book because of the outrageous price the academic publishers are charging. It's an interesting story of practical contribution – economics as clarified policy commonsense as I like to think of it...
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[caption id="" align="alignright" width="423"] Cross posted from Inside Story [/caption] In 1943, back working where he’d been during the first world war, the now-famous economist John Maynard Keynes wrote to a friend: Here I am back… in the Treasury like a recurring decimal —...
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What's at stake in monetary policy? The most obvious answer is "jobs and growth" – to coin a phrase. The idea is that, by meeting its target of low and steady (2-3%) inflation, the RBA tries also to keep us as close as practicable to full employment. But, as we've realised sin...
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One of the best pieces of scientific news the last decades has been the spectacular improvements in solar energy generation. The current world price was set in 2017 when the Dubai government bought a large future solar contract for 7.3 US cents per Kilowatt Hour, a mere 1/6 th...
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[caption id="attachment_32410" align="alignright" width="458"] A particularly grotesque example of many things, only marginally related to the red tape busting agenda.[/caption] This post is worked up from a comment of mine on this Mandarin post on a new submission to the Thod...
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Some more fascinating results in the 'whodda thunk?' category. You can track down the paper in various published and pre-published forms here . Note, while I've not changed any meanings, I've occasionally shortened a sentence without horsing around too much with [square bracke...
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Cross posted from the Mandarin : https://youtu.be/Lvcnx6-0GhA I recently made a submission to the Productivity Commission's inquiry into competition in finance. I wanted to suggest a very simple idea, that I thought could make a big difference. Moreover it came straight from D...
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[caption id="" align="alignright" width="720"] It's funny how not-for-profit is more efficient than for profit where there's masses of opportunities to rip people off? Who'da thunk? The Industry Funds were dragged into the Royal Commission in line with the well established pri...
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One of my twenty something friends once told me of a meeting to discuss corporate social responsibility in their Big Law Firm. Along came the heavies of the firm, together with their Champions of Change. These champions of change are men who look out for women – largely by mak...
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If only I'd been alive to get to one of these events. Nelson Mandela Last year's second dinner was perhaps only matched by Lincoln's Second Inaugural. Nicholas Gruen Lying Nick Gruen is a total lightweight. TOTALLY FAKE ECONOMIST. Begged me to let him clean the ashtrays on The...
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Arguing with an American ex-Australian now resident in Canada, I contested his view that, of the three countries, America is the least and Australia the most, authoritarian. In part it was a verbal difference. I was taking “authoritarian” in the established pejorative meaning:...
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There's an amazing amount of dreck about – masquerading as the latest thinking. It's not that there isn't a lot to think about, so it's easy to think you should read this or that. How to choose? One of my filters is the first page test, or even the first paragraph test. Does t...
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There's a spectre haunting Europe … and the rest of the Western world. We have elaborate 'diversity' programs in good upper-middle-class places to prevent discrimination against all manner of minorities (and majorities like women). It's a fine thing. But there's a diversity ch...
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Leon Gettler interviewed me recently on my exchange with Krugman . As you can imagine, it's a difficult thing to explain in an interview, but I took that as a challenge – if you like to my interview 'technique'. Just as I love doing it with columns, working over what I'm sayin...
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[caption id="" align="alignright" width="378"] I'm not quite sure how Monash University Press has done this, but this is a high production but relatively low volume book, so I was expecting its price to be around the $60 mark. It is $39.95 in shops, but can be purchased for $3...
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A friend referred me to a relatively new site " Briefings on Brexit " yesterday which I checked out with interest. It was started by academics who were fed up with Brexit being stereotyped as mad and bad. They started the site to proselytise a reasoned and well informed case f...
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Below is my response to Krugman's comments in defence of new trade theory. It's not generated any discussion on the Mandarin or Evonomics , but perhaps it will here. Apologies for the delay in getting it onto Troppo – I've been travelling. I recently criticised contemporary ec...
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The Donald is visiting the UK and has had me in stitches a whole day. He's clearly been having a chat with Nigel Farage about how to handle the Conservatives and has shown them up in spectacular fashion. Theresa May, bless her, was of course in an impossible position. She undo...
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A number of previous researches indicate that men prefer competition over cooperation, and it is sometimes suggested that women show the opposite behavioral preference. In the current study the effects of social context on gender differences in cooperation are investigated. Fo...
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Cross posted from John Menadue's Pearls and Irritations NBN Co claims their ‘focus remains strongly on improving customer experience on the network including a smooth connection to the network.’ In fact the experience is a fiasco. Bill Shorten says the dysfunctional NBN needs...
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