Well, Snake and I have received the 60 days notice to vacate. So, we will be moving further West (since we cannot afford rents in the Seddon area). The longer travel times and higher rent (we were paying very low rent because the place was such a dump) I am not looking forward to. And I will miss Seddon and being close to friends. But a clean, ( Read more... )

A two-part essay on the problems of social division and failures of urban planning and management using Sydney and Melbourne as "compare and contrast" examples is here:
Since 1990, owner-occupied and investment property credit has expanded its share of total credit from 23 per cent to 58 per cent. (Business credit has dropped from 63 to 34 per cent ( Read more... )

Noting problems with the concept of ‘livability’.

A post with some nice graphs on the bursting of the American housing bubbles. Graph showing that housing price surges occurred in several countries.

Economics aspires to be a science: too bad it is about people then:
the more everyone believes the model, and the more everyone uses the same model ( Read more... )

N and I spent much of Australia Day working on the global history we are co-writing, derived in large part from years of presenting history to thousands of students. We now have a complete draft of Part I, though I will have to rewrite the Conclusion after N has gone through my edits on the Foreword, Introduction and Chapters 1 to 5. But I am now ( Read more... )

Sometimes, you ask a question and you just hit comedy gold.

The funniest piece on monetary economics you are ever going to read (no, really).

Responding to the viral cartoon on Quantitative Easing. (The original animation falls into the “very funny but not entirely accurate” category.)

The follow-up to the Hayek-versus-Keynes “Fear the Boom and ( Read more... )

Cartoon busker illustrates ideas from Adam Smith.

Reminding us that governments did not create the welfare system, they nationalised it.

Paper on how migration boosts pay of resident workers: it turns out to be an increased capital scarcity effect, as you would expect.

Nice clear post on the notion of efficiency in economics and how it is used ( Read more... )

When Donald Horne wrote The Lucky Country, the title was an ironic indictment of mediocrity. And one can point to fortunate things about the land of Oz. The rich resource base. Being settled by the British rather than by, say, the Spanish ( Read more... )

Investment tips from the World Cup.

American Muslims in the liquor business.

Paper finds evidence that current levels of per capita GDP correlate strongly with (pdf) technology levels of 1500 which correlate strongly with technology levels at 1000:
Our principal finding is that the 1500 AD measure is a statistically significant predictor of the ( Read more... )

A case of citizen action in defence of property rights.

Examining the links between foreign aid and corruption (pdf). Examining who get foreign aid and why (pdf).

Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom recently went to No.1 on Amazon.

Profiling two economists who have just published a study of 800 years of financial crises. Prof. Russ Roberts of George ( Read more... )

Ph.D thesis examines Ricardian equivalence in Oz and finds significant private-public saving offsets (which implies, amongst other things, that tax cuts and spending grants are significantly saved).

Continuing the argument over whether fiscal stimulus works.

About the battle inside the Fed over monetary policy. Pointing out that Obama is deeply ( Read more... )