The world price of oil has now declined to under $50US a barrel, a third of it’s peak value (live prices here). This takes me back to a post we did at the end of May – when fuel costs were pushing up at a rate of knots. The topic was covered in the name: …
Category Archive: Microeconomics
Permanent link to this article: http://www.tvhe.co.nz/2008/11/21/multiple-equilibrium-and-the-fall-in-oil-prices/
Nov 05 2008
Google takes on time-inconsistency
In its eternal quest to “not be evil” Google has decided to take on one of the banes of man – himself, and his time-inconsistency. It is doing this by introducing a new service to gmail. You can set up this service to significantly increase the transaction cost associated with sending an email when you …
Permanent link to this article: http://www.tvhe.co.nz/2008/11/05/google-takes-on-time-inconsistency/
Oct 13 2008
Tax credit for R&D: What’s the point?
So in National’s tax package they have dumped the R&D tax credit. Businesses seem disappointed – but this isn’t enough information in of itself to tell me whether getting rid of the credit is socially optimal or not. In order to analyse this we have to think about why an R&D tax credit could be …
Permanent link to this article: http://www.tvhe.co.nz/2008/10/13/tax-credit-for-rd-whats-the-point/
Oct 07 2008
Law and Order: An Economics (sunk cost) Perspective
A raging debate is going on over at Colin Espiner’s blog on National’s new law and order policy. Given that people are making lots of arguments on both sides, I thought it might be worthwhile laying out an analytical framework for how an Economist might view the justice system. I’m not going to go into …
Permanent link to this article: http://www.tvhe.co.nz/2008/10/07/law-and-order-an-economics-sunk-cost-perspective/
Oct 06 2008
Price asymmetry and my bus ticket
A large debate in economics stems from the idea that there is a price asymmetry in the economy. What this implies is that prices are more flexible in one direction (up or down) then they are in the other direction. The commonly provided example is petrol prices. People feel that when crude oil rises in …
Permanent link to this article: http://www.tvhe.co.nz/2008/10/06/price-asymmetry-and-my-bus-ticket/
Sep 09 2008
Putting your money where your mouth is
ISCR have just launched New Zealand’s first prediction market. From iPredict: Who’s going to be the next Prime Minister – Helen or John? Will the price of petrol be $3 a litre by Christmas? Will Winston be sacked before election day? These are some of the questions Kiwis may find themselves backing their opinions on …
Permanent link to this article: http://www.tvhe.co.nz/2008/09/09/putting-your-money-where-your-mouth-is/
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