Posts tagged…Evidence
Evidence that shorting ban “a mistake”
Wed, Feb 11 2009Reactive policies adopted because the regulators have a ‘hunch’ they’re right are frequently wrong. So, it now seems, with the ban that ASIC imposed on short-selling stocks—a common and prudent risk hedge—because, they said, it would lead to “unwarranted price fluctuations” in financial stocks.
Whatever that means: the regulator never explained to us what was ‘unwarranted’ about falls in the…
Read more…Costs and benefits of trade
Tue, Feb 10 2009
It's a shame that even the Financial Times has joined the chorus of alarm about the recent plunge in trade volumes.
"[The IMF] expects (Asian) regional growth of just 2.7 per cent, a fraction of the 9 per cent achieved in 2007 and a percentage point lower even than it managed during its own financial crisis a decade ago. That crisis was largely self-inflicted, the product of an overdependence on…
The fiscal stimulus as ‘experiment’
Mon, Feb 09 2009A few days ago, I suggested Gary Banks' perceptive reminder that "all policy is experiment" should guide plans for the proposed fiscal stimulus in Australia. The prudent rule is: take moderate steps, test the evidence of results, adjust direction, and move again. Given the relative strengths of the Australian economy we have the time (and the data) to do that.
Now economist Henry Ergas, writing…
The fresh fruit mafia
Sun, Feb 08 2009Now that people smoke less, VicHealth—a statutory authority set up by the Victorian Parliament in the late 1980s to reduce the use of tobacco—has to find other ways to suck up our taxes. Over the years they have apparently become convinced that they are guardians of what's good for us and they're willing to go to dramatic lengths to ensure we conform to their views about... fresh fruit…
Gary Banks on evidence-based policy
Thu, Feb 05 2009
About two-thirds the way through his paper on how to make ‘evidence-based policy’, given as an address a couple of days ago to the Australia/New Zealand School of Government, Gary Banks, the Chair of the Productivity Commission quotes a sardonic aphorism of Keynes:
“There is nothing a Government hates more than to be well-informed; for it makes the process of arriving at decisions much more…
Should you be worried about salt?
Thu, Feb 05 2009This post is may seem a little 'off-topic'. But please bear with me a moment. It's about 'evidence-based' public policy.
I find that working on international trade and trade policies places a premium on good evidence as the basis of good public policy. There is a lot of b.s. in the political economy of trade (no surprise). The very first thing to do is to look at the evidence—"who gains and who…
EU incentives for milk production
Sun, Jan 25 2009
The re-introduction of intervention-buying and export subsidies for milk products in the EU comes after the steady fall of EU milk/milk-product prices to near the (undistorted) world market price over the past decade. The 'gap' between the distorted EU price and the undistorted world price is the 'nominal rate of assistance' (NRA) to EU milk that can be plotted in the Agricultural Incentives…
Emission controls not warranted by facts
Tue, Dec 16 2008
Some environmentalists (and The Age newspaper) are predictably crying foul at Kevin Rudd's relatively modest White Paper option of up to 25% or 35% cuts from the estimated business as usual level of Australian GHG emissions in 2020. Nevertheless, the proposed ETS conforms to the government's threat to "reform and transform our economy" (Climate Minister, Penny Wong), by effectively choking it…
Farmers unhappy about CSIRO drought ‘alarmism’
Thu, Aug 07 2008In my experience you can count on farmers to sniff out hype. Even before David Stockwell completed his statistical analysis, the NSW Farmers' Association President thought the CSIRO had exaggerated the problem.
"Association president Jock Laurie says while the Climate Report does say ‘exceptionally high temperatures’ are likely to occur frequently, this does not equate to drought. Alarmist…
CSIRO Drought Model ‘fails’
Wed, Aug 06 2008David Stockwell at Niche Modeling has completed his analysis of the CSIRO's Exceptional Circumstances Drought Report. His conclusion punctures the hyperbole of it's launch.
"In a statistical re-analysis of the data from the Drought Exceptional Circumstances Report, all climate models failed standard internal validation tests for regional droughted area in Australia over the last century. The most…
Spencer’s ‘smoking gun’
Wed, Jul 23 2008Dr. Roy Spencer, former NASA climate researcher, now managing the satellite temperature data collection at the University of Alabama, Huntsville, claims to have found a 'smoking gun'signal on climate sensitivity
[W]e now have new satellite evidence which strongly suggests that…the real climate system appears to be dominated by negative feedbacks’—instead of the positive feedbacks……
Another Galilean ‘dissenter’
Fri, Jul 18 2008David Evans, ex-GreenHouse Office:
"The world has spent $50 billion on global warming since 1990, and we have not found any actual evidence that carbon emissions cause global warming … Computer models and theoretical calculations are not evidence, they are just theory." extract from: The Australian