I didn’t manage to see everything I wanted to but here are a few highlights. I’m sure Matt will want to add a few of his own, too.

• The blogging session was novel and saw a great presentation from Berk Ozler. If you’re not already reading his blog, Development Impact, you can read what he had to say about the conference here. The following panel discussion was interesting, although it would have been nice to have more time for comments and discussion from the floor. I hope it encouraged a few more people to comment on the NZ economics blogs; I’ve certainly seen a few attendees of that session jump into our comment threads since, which is great!
• The keynote’s I saw were all fantastic. Lutz Kilian’s presentation on oil markets was more interesting than oil market econometrics have any right to be. He’s also a very forceful and persuasive presenter; I certainly wouldn’t want to be on the other side of an argument with him, that’s for sure! Leslie Young’s comment on the complexity of financial systems and the differences between China and America’s markets was also very insightful.
• Watching Andrew Coleman advocate for a capital gains tax, followed immediately by Seamus putting up a slide entitled ‘Capital gains taxation is an insidious taking’, was entertaining. I don’t think they actually had a substantive disagreement but it’s always fun to see two excellent economists take opposing sides in a debate.
• Arthur Grimes’ presentation on wellbeing indices brought interesting empirics to the discussion of their value over and above GDP measures. I think that’s worthy of a blog post on it’s own.
• But the best part of a conference isn’t the papers, it’s the people. NZ economists are an incredibly friendly, knowledgeable, and welcoming bunch so I highly recommend turning up next year, if only for the beer and banter!

Of course, there were a few things that didn’t work quite so well. A notable problem was with the use of discussants, who often had only hours to formulate their comments on a paper. Consequently, the depth of discussants’ comments was often disappointing, particularly given how talented many of the discussants were. I don’t know what went wrong with the system but hopefully the problems can be ironed out for next year. Having discussants took a lot of time away from presentations and audience questions, which was a shame when the discussants had not had time to adequately prepare.

Nonetheless, it was a good conference and we’ll be back next year in Wellington. Matt’s already starting to crowd-source his paper on the economics of tarot card reading!

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!

Speaker: Matt Burgess, Chief Executive, iPredict

Date: Monday 23 March 2009

Venue: Level 17, Chapman Tripp, 10 Customhouse Quay, Wellington (please note that there is no access to the building after 6pm)

Time: Refreshments from 5:30pm, seminar at 6pm

RSVP: to: angela.bamford@bellgully.com (please note that an RSVP is not compulsory, but we would appreciate hearing from you if you plan to attend)

Topic

Prediction markets have been counted among the most intriguing institutional innovations of the last quarter-century. A prediction market is a share market for future events in any field, including politics, business, and social outcomes. Traders in a prediction market take a position on the likelihood or expected outcome of a future event. The market price that emerges from trading is the prediction, and reflects the wisdom of the crowd.

In the twenty years since their invention in the United States, prediction markets have developed an extraordinary forecasting record and have outperformed every competing forecasting institution, most notably election polling. Prediction markets have several characteristics that give them strong advantages over rival forecasting methods. They are robust to manipulation, they require only a few traders to produce excellent forecasts, they can be run using real or play money, and market-based forecasts are a low cost alternative to polling, experts and group deliberation.

Matt Burgess describes what prediction markets are and their history, shows that they are one example of a recent harnessing of the wisdom of crowds, compares their performance to a range of alternative forecasting methods, and looks at the performance of New Zealand’s real money prediction market iPredict since its launch in September 2008.

Speaker

Matt Burgess is the Chief Executive of iPredict, the real money prediction market owned by Victoria University and the Institute for the Study of Competition and Regulation (ISCR). He is a Research Associate at the ISCR.

This month’s seminar by the Law and Economics Association of New Zealand (LEANZ):

Topic: Perspecitves on the ‘credit crunch’ and the state of finance markets

Speaker: Brendan O’Donovan, Chief Economist, Westpac

Date: Tuesday 10 March 2009

Venue: Chapman Tripp, Level 35, ANZ Centre, 23 Albert Street, Auckland

Time: 5:15 pm for a 5:30 pm start, followed by refreshments

RSVP: to: jenniene.fleming@chapmantripp.com

Topic

As talk of the ‘credit crunch’ has given way to assessments of how long and how deep a recession will be, it is more important than ever to get an informed perspective on the negative and positive features of financial markets here and abroad.

Speaker

Brendan O’Donovan has been Chief Economist with Westpac since 2003. Previously he has worked as Chief Economist for National Bank and worked as a macro-economist at the NZ Institute of Economic Research. Brendan has been published in NZ and international journals. He is a regular on the speaker circuit and is frequently providing comment to the media.

Using the law as a last resort in policy making: challenging the ‘Working for Families’ redistributive package (Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) v the Attorney General, 2008)

Speakers: Dr Susan St John, University of Auckland Business School

Date: Thursday 13 November 2008

Venue: Buddle Findlay, Level 18, PriceWaterhouseCoopers Tower, 188 Quay Street, Auckland

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

RSVP and topic details below

RSVP: to: sophie.brooke@chapmantripp.com

Topic: Between 2005 and 2007 the government implemented a far reaching redistributive package called Working for Families. A catch-up package for families was well overdue. The process of development of this policy however was characterised by a marked lack of consultation with key stakeholders, and a lack of clear economic analysis of the way in which the goals would be achieved. Working for Families perpetuated a major element of discrimination that is entirely lacking in the Australian approach to family assistance. By adopting two goals for Working for Families (reducing child poverty, and improving work incentives), both outcomes have been compromised.

Earlier this year, CPAG v the Attorney General was heard under Part 1a of the Human Rights Act 2008, in the Human Rights Tribunal. CPAG alleges that the In Work Tax Credit is discriminatory, causing material harm to many thousands of children with no redeeming work incentive justification. The outcome is awaited, and may have major implications for any agreement or coalition after the election.

Speaker: Dr Susan St John is a Senior Lecturer in Economics at The University of Auckland Business School. Susan’s research and teaching interests are focused on retirement policy issues, macroeconomics and the economics of the public sector.

Susan’s current research interests include taxation, pensions, long-term care insurance, accident compensation, family law and economics and income support. Her current projects include an analysis of family incomes in New Zealand, the welfare state and targeting, the role of home equity release and annuities in New Zealand, international pension systems, the economic implications of New Zealand’s Accident Compensation scheme ACC, savings schemes and tax reforms.

Susan is the economics spokesperson for Child Poverty Action group Inc (“CPAG”).