jamesz

Nick Smith is the bag man

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It’s great to see the government taking economic incentives seriously. Their latest initiative considers imposing a 5c/bag tariff on plastic bags in supermarkets. The idea is that the market price for the bags doesn’t take into account the full environmental cost of non-biodegradable bags. By taxing the bags the government can adjust the market price of the bags to match their social cost.

What gets me so excited about it is that green regulations usually seem to take the form of rather arbitrary quotas and limits. Read more

jamesz

Earth Hour

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Earth Hour came and went over the weekend. There has been a lot of debate on the blogs over its merits: some support it, but many think it’s a waste of time. The goal of Earth Hour isn’t to save the world in one hour by reducing emissions from lighting; it’s to raise awareness of climate change. Given the amount of discussion about it that’s been generated I can only imagine that it’s been a huge success, regardless of whether everyone turned their lights off. I haven’t seen so much discussion of the best way to save power across the blogs and news media in ages!

Of course, any major environmental cause causes some crazies to come out of the woodwork. A few obtuse people have promoted the alternative Edison Hour, where people celebrate technology by turning their lights on. Read more

Matt Nolan

Cartoon: Technological progress

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(Source XKCD)

Technological improvements will always be the primary way to improve living standards.  See here, here, and here.

Matt Nolan

What is up with the balance of payments?

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Ok, so this may seem arbitrary – but I think it gives a good indication of how dodgy statistics can be 😉

So on Thursday the Balance of Payments was released.  The BOP must equal zero – that is an identity it has to hold.  When people talk about the BOP deficit they are being weird, they often mean a “current account deficit”.
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Matt Nolan

What is “economics” in the most general sense

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In this post I will try to say what economics is – at least, as far as I understand it 😛 . The purpose of this piece is to be part of the set of posts for new readers – so feedback is very appreciated.

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goonix

France’s novel approach to the wage bargain: ‘boss-napping’

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In the face of increasingly uncertain economic times, the latest trend in France is for workers unhappy with their company’s position on labour to boss-nap,. Boss-napping entails workers disappointed with redundancies or payouts taking their bosses hostage as a bargaining tool! Recent kidnappings have involved 3M France’s industrial director and Sony France’s CEO and HR director.

Unfortunately it seems that the tactic is working, with 3M France’s industrial director being released after signing a deal which offered more favourable treatment for the 110 employees who faced losing their jobs. I’m not sure of the validity of such a contract made under duress over there – I doubt it would stand up here – but hey, they do things differently in France.