Much of the latest issue of the Economic Journal is devoted to the contribution that economics can make to early assessments of the quality of wine, a field first popularised by Orley Ashenfelter. Here’s a summary.
Much of the latest issue of the Economic Journal is devoted to the contribution that economics can make to early assessments of the quality of wine, a field first popularised by Orley Ashenfelter. Here’s a summary.
A paper in the latest issue of the Journal of Law and Economics demonstrates the welfare cost of more stringent security at US airports. Read more »
According to research by Joshua Gans, I am the happiest of the six Australian econ-bloggers in his survey. What can one do but smile?
A post by Harry Clarke bemoans the fact that policies regulating alcohol often fail to apply simple benefit-cost analysis. This got me thinking about some of the other issues upon which I’d like to see a little more rigorous benefit-cost thinking, and a little less off-the-cuff moralising. Read more »
The Productivity Commission has just posted on its website the proceedings of a 2007 roundtable on behavioural economics. The most provocative piece is by QUT’s Paul Frijters (who mistakenly gets a UQ designation), discussing Eldar Shafir’s opening keynote. Frijters’ discussion (which starts on p35 of the PDF) is a neat summary of the problems involved in applying behavioural economic research to policy. A few snippets: Read more »
My colleagues at ANU’s Australian Demographic and Social Research Institute are running a series of “Case Studies of Australian Social Policy” seminars. They have an impressive lineup, which I’ve reproduced over the fold.
With resource prices rising far faster than expected, my AFR op-ed today discusses the arguments for and against a windfall profits tax on mining companies. Full text over the fold.
Spurred by this paper (on how happy Brisbanians think Nobel economists are), Joshua Gans is running a survey on perceptions of the happiness of six Australian econ-bloggers. Go here to complete it.
I think Gans should also compare his externally-rated measures with self-assessment. For example, I’d class myself as “Very happy”.
According to a new paper by Amanda Goodall, Lawrence Kahn, and Andrew Oswald, the answer is yes. Read more »
Sitting on the other side of the world, I’ve felt rather removed from budget commentary, though I’ve found much to agree with in Nicholas Gruen’s called for harsher cuts in middle-class welfare (can we means-test the first homeowners’ grant too?), Andrew Norton’s call for fewer cuts in basic statistical provision (would Lindsay Tanner mind if we took some of the higher education fund and used it to patch up his cuts t Read more »
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