Posts tagged…Economics
Economics’ standard model defective
Wed, Apr 14 2010Apt reminder from John Kay
"The standard approach ['rational expectations' theory: PWG] has the appearance of science in its ability to generate clear predictions from a small number of axioms. But only the appearance, since these predictions are mostly false. The environment actually faced by investors and economic policymakers is one in which actions do depend on beliefs and perceptions, must…
Read more…Micro-macro
Sun, Apr 12 2009Tim Harford—discussing the dissing of macro—quotes P J O'Rouke:
"[M]icroeconomics concerns things that economists are specifically wrong about, while macroeconomics concerns things that they are wrong about generally" Extract from Tim Harford in the Financial Times
Myopic NBN economics
Thu, Mar 12 2009
Bill Glasson is an opthalmologist from Winton in Western Queeensland who now chairs the Regional Telecommunications Independent Review Committee. His Committee is doling out more than $60m in subsidies for rural satellite phone bills, indigenous phone services and remote broadband. His view on Telstra's proposal to upgrade it's urban cable network?
"Dr Glasson said it was not in the nation's…
Transition to a non-carbon economy
Fri, Nov 21 2008The objectives of climate-change mitigation programs such as those in the Garnaut Report or in the Australian Government's absurdly-named 'carbon pollution reduction scheme' cannot be achieved by 2020 or 2050 without a massive, and rapid, transition away from carbon-intensive energy sources of primary energy for base-load power generation, transport etc.
But forcing rapid change in the way we…
Memoir of Keynes
Sun, Nov 09 2008
Amusing, anecdotal, accurate short memorial of the great man, now again in the news (the portrait of Keynes at work by his one-time lover, Duncan Grant).
Easterly vs the Growth Commission
Mon, Jun 02 2008The Growth Commission report has been described by David Warsh as an orphan of the World Bank's former regime (under Wolfowitz). Now Bill Easterly claims its reductionist expertism—abandoning all grand theories of development—is also an empty promise. There is at least one general principle that can be discerned in every case of successful development:
"Confirming Hayek, systems that give more…
A ‘magic’ recipe for global food shortages
Thu, Apr 17 2008
There is no 'famine' nor even a long-term food scarcity. But poor people are paying more for food—when they can get it—than they should because governments have screwed-up. There is a well-attested solution to this problem, that looks like magic. You can have your cake and eat it too, with both higher prices for producers and lower prices and better supply for consumers.
Victor Mallet in the…