As I contributed to the related book of book reviews, and as this particular event is in Wellington (where I live), I’m on the panel.  Here are the details which I stole from an email:

The event is at the Royal Society (11 Turnbull Street, Thordon) and begins at 5.30pm.

 

Bernard Hickey is chairing the panel, with the other panellists being Geoff Bertram, Brian Easton, Prue Hyman, Max Rashbrooke and Cathy Wylie. 

 

The aim of the event is simply to have some broad and engaging discussion on the relevance of Piketty for New Zealand, with reference to the book being launched on the night. 

And if it swings your boat, you can even join the Facebook event.

If you want to prepare beforehand, here is my long-form review (filled with typos – like honestly filled, it is a first draft that never went any further), here are some common misconceptions, and here is a list of other reviews.

In Auckland on 10 September (just under two weeks away) the Law and Economics Association of New Zealand (LEANZ) is putting on a special event with the ComCom’s top competition economist (Lilla Csorgo) and top competition lawyer (David Blacktop) talking about the new guidelines.

Details from the mailout below:

Topic:            New Mergers and Acquisitions and Authorisation Guidelines

 Speakers:       David Blacktop, Principal Counsel, Competition, Commerce Commission

Lilla Csorgo, Chief Economist, Competition, Commerce Commission

 Venue:             Russell McVeagh, Level 30, Vero Centre, 48 Shortland St, Auckland

Time:               5.15 pm for 5.30 pm start, followed by refreshments

RSVP:              email:  kate@covec.co.nz or phone: (09) 916 2015

This is a special event in addition to the regular LEANZ Auckland seminar series.

New Mergers and Acquisitions and Authorisations Guidelines

The Commerce Commission has recently published new Mergers and Acquisitions Guidelines and Authorisation Guidelines, more than ten years since the last version of one of these guidelines was published. This talk will explain the changes included in the new guidelines.

Hopefully the presentation is a bit more too the point.  And yes, my presentation does take the form of Tarot Cards.

I had a lot of fun reading literature and writing up that paper, but a combination of having to ram Tarot Card reading into a narrative that it didn’t fit in (by the end), and a lack of time to polish down my ideas and surgically remove irrelevant information, made the paper a touch … long.  It is significantly shorter than the version that James had to trudge through at least

What I did learn was that the analytical tools and understanding associated with folk psychology, and its link with scientific psychology, offers an awesome area for analysing economics, economists, and economic communication.  Wandering into that field was a pleasant experience.

The paper in its form as of the presentation:  Matt Nolan NZAE2013

I’m disappointed that it seems Eric from Offsetting and Paul Walker from Antidismal will not be there.  However, according to Seamus’s post there will be a few of us loitering around – I am not there on the Tuesday, but will be around on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday.

Anyone else reading this who is going to be there as well?

Is there any way to get these costumes in time for the conference?

During the presentation I’ll cover the follow:

• An overview of what’s going on in Europe, what we need to keep an eye out for, and how it will impact on New Zealand generally,
• A discussion of “rebalancing” in New Zealand,
• What’s going on with food prices and what it means for us,
• The growing problems in the labour market,
• A social “minimum income”.

During question time I will also be available to talk about anything … as long as its economics related.

I’d love to see you guys there to discuss these issues with me.

I will be doing a presentation for the blogging community this Friday in Auckland.  It will be at 3pm, and we will be meeting up at the MORE FM reception on Level 2, 239 Ponsonby Rd.

During the presentation I’ll cover the follow:

• An overview of what’s going on in Europe, what we need to keep an eye out for, and how it will impact on New Zealand generally,
• A discussion of “rebalancing” in New Zealand,
• What’s going on with food prices and what it means for us,
• The growing problems in the labour market,
• A social “minimum income”.

During question time, and at the bar afterwards, I will also be available to talk about anything … as long as its economics related.

I’d love to see you guys there to discuss these issues with me.

You guys have been good to me, challenging my preconceptions and helping me to develop my ideas understand (ideas was a stupid term – I never come up with anything original, I just aim to try to understand the world around me given the knowledge that already exists ).

I want to give something back by giving you guys a rundown on what has been going on in the economy, and some of the issues we should be keeping an eye on over the next three years.  Given that it is after the election I’m calling it a “post-election economic update for bloggers”.

I will pop up more details closer to the time – I just wanted to give you guys a heads up that this is happening, and that you are all more than welcome.

For those that cannot make it, I will pop up the slides on the site after the Wellington presentation.

Of course, it is also a chance for bloggers who normally interact only through the interwebs to talk in person and this conference was no exception: as the sole representative of TVHE I was accosted and lambasted by both Eric and Seamus from Offsetting Behaviour for our lack of recent activity. As Matt has previously mentioned, things have been a bit busy for us at work lately but blogging is Matt’s second highest priority so he’ll be back just as soon as he has a free hour or two.

In lieu of a post about Serious Issues I thought I’d let you know what the bloggers at NZAE got up to. I didn’t see Eric’s talk myself but I’m told that he was just as fiery in person as people had expected from reading his posts. He talked about the problems with social cost studies in a session that also included his nemesis from the public health world, Des O’Dea. Eric seems to have a knack for confrontation at NZAE conferences after being paired in a session with Adrian Slack, co-author of BERL’s report on the social costs of alcohol, a couple of years ago. Not one to relax after one presentation, he also gave a talk about some of the more academic work he has co-authored with Bryan Caplan. I’m sure you can read more about both topics over at Offsetting Behaviour.

I made sure to attend Seamus’ presentation, not because I am an avid follower of electricity markets but because he always gives a great talk. I imagine he’s an excellent lecturer if his conference presentations are anything to go by. This year he made the bold claim that New Zealand would be better off if everyone bought their electricity from Powershop, although he sensibly stopped just short of recommending any policy interventions. His explanation revolved around the marginal retail price’s response to demand shocks and something to do with strategic complementarity, but I don’t want to give it all away before he has a chance to blog it himself!

There were also contributions from a number of regular commenters on this blog, although most go by pseudonyms. The one notable economist who makes a point of going by his full name in the comments is Andrew Coleman and, while I didn’t bump into him, he presented a paper discussing the impact of retail price discounts on the CPI.

Your erstwhile bloggers at TVHE were poorly represented by comparison with our Cantabrian colleagues. Goonix is in the UK now so he couldn’t make it. Matt and Agnitio weren’t able to find the time to attend, sadly, and my presentation on capital-labour substitution elasticities couldn’t rise to the giddy heights of excitement that Eric and Seamus managed.

If there are any other bloggers or commenters that I’ve missed let us know in the comments below. And, if you didn’t come along, start planning for next year now. Not only is it a very well run event but Seamus has the dubious honour of being the conference organiser next year and I’m sure he’d appreciate some of the blog love being translated into real life support!

It was Green party hosted, so I have the impression that many of the ideas (especially when mentioned by their own MPs) were their ideas.

Now, there are a number of final value judgments I disagreed with, I felt the idea of crisis was overplayed, and the early characterisation of “neo-classical economics” was in many ways wrong and attacked economists too much – also they were too willing to blame the GFC (Great Financial Crisis) on any pet theory that existed.  BUT, these are all minor quibbles, and overall I was impressed with the discussion.

My main quibble is that sustainability was treated as the primary goal – this is still a “throughput” towards the main goal which is the welfare of the appropriate group on earth.  Assuming sustainability is the sole goal is equivalent to an extreme assumption about the makeup of the environment and/or the welfare function.  However, I will let this slide as I got to note it here .

The Green MPs spoke well, and showed a willingness to discuss and think about trade-offs, I was impressed with them.  There still seemed to be a feeling of “command and control” among some elements of the discussion, and there were specific issues I disagreed with, but overall I felt that the MPs were actually some of the best speakers – David and Russel spoke very well, and at least in terms of the framework they used I largely agreed with them.

The afternoon economic discussion was civil and sensible – and the policy conclusions that the speakers came too made sense.  So much so that if the Green party actually discussed their framework with Labour, National, and ACT (namely thinking about natural capital and accounting for externalities) they would find a large amount of agreement.

Now, this is the thing – the disagreement between parties is about the magnitudes, the quantitative figures, not the qualitative idea of allocation.

Given how much abuse the descriptive economic method took during the morning, I was surprised that the actual discussion on economic policy turned around and used it – surprised in a pleasant way.

Good on the Green party for getting this together – if you focused on discussing these issues and committing to studies that would try to work out the value of any policies objectively, I would vote for you.

If I continue to hear about capital controls and changes to monetary policy (none of which were raised at this conference thank goodness) then I will not vote for you.

That is just me though.

Very good, I would be keen to go except – it is over a work day.  It takes up an entire Tuesday, from 8.30am to 5pm.  It is set up so that it is on at a time when lots of people have to work.

This brings me to my point – why are these workshops never on weekends, or after work.  I generally can’t manage to take time off – I’m working on weekends enough as it is [Note:  Although I am going to the sustainability conference on Friday November 12, as I wanted to keep abreast of potential policy movements here].

Anyway, that is enough of me whining – just wanted to illustrate my disappointment that I can’t get to so many of these things