If you enjoy this essay check out my free book here: Something to Read in Quarantine, Essays 2018-2020 All the time I see people saying "The economy shouldn't be modelled as exploitative or based in conflict, it's not a zero-sum game". This is junk. While the economy isn't a zero-sum game, this doesn't mean it's … Continue reading The “It’s not a zero-sum game” fallacy
Category: Economics and economics adjacent material not elsewhere classified
How much do people care about relative income? A lot.
I was reading this article when I came across this: "By regression 2, half of the individuals in our sample would be as happy with an increase in her absolute income of 19.78 percent or less, while the incomes of all others in her country remained fixed, as they would with a doubling of the … Continue reading How much do people care about relative income? A lot.
CEOs don’t work especially hard
Boonta Vista bought my attention to this article in the Wall Street Journal regarding the Executive Time Use Project. The headline figure is that the average CEO works 55 hours a week. Already this is less than the big numbers that often get waved around about this sort of thing- most of the folk wisdom … Continue reading CEOs don’t work especially hard
GDP undervalues government services
I. Gross domestic product can be calculated in many ways, but one of the most common is: (Government expenditure)+(Consumption)+(Investment)+((Exports)-(Imports)) To see why government expenditure is under-counted consider two countries, one of which provides all of its health care through the public sector, the other through the private sector. In the latter case, health care is … Continue reading GDP undervalues government services
The paradox of high expectations: The more you demand, the less you get
In various fairly common situations, demanding more can result in receiving less. I. The kinds of situation I am talking about are ubiquitous, but we'll start with employee hiring. Suppose you are running a job search, and are primarily interested in some desirable talent T. Perhaps T is years of experience using some application or … Continue reading The paradox of high expectations: The more you demand, the less you get
Yet another case in which minimum wage increases can raise employment
In a very simple supply and demand model the minimum wage increases unemployment. Yet there are many plausible models under which the minimum wage can actually increase employment, or have no effect on unemployment. This is fortunate because much of the empirical literature tends to suggest that the minimum wage as no effect, or only … Continue reading Yet another case in which minimum wage increases can raise employment
Explaining the non-effect of the minimum wage on employment: Could bosses screwing even themselves over by setting wages “irrationally” low be part of the explanation?
A substantial literature suggests that minimum wage increases have no negative effect on employment. The most popular explanation for this in economics is the theory that employers have monopsony power over their workers for a variety of reasons ranging from firm concentration to the difficulty and uncertainty navigating the job market and getting another job. I have … Continue reading Explaining the non-effect of the minimum wage on employment: Could bosses screwing even themselves over by setting wages “irrationally” low be part of the explanation?
The Economic Ideology: what it is and how it reproduces itself
[This is not exactly finished work. I'm still very much in the process of tinkering with it.] I want to draw a distinction between economics, and what I call the economic ideology, for the purpose of critiquing the latter. Economics is a complex, nuanced discipline. I have my problems with mainstream economics, but it often … Continue reading The Economic Ideology: what it is and how it reproduces itself
Share market growth isn’t the same as economic growth, in fact they go the opposite way
Edit: After I'd written this post I realised that John Ross had written a similar post here. I hemmed and hawed about whether I should post this but decided to in the end. Go visit John's blog, it's very good. Edit 2: I am not Slajov Zizek. I don't know why the Slajov Zizek image … Continue reading Share market growth isn’t the same as economic growth, in fact they go the opposite way
DePonySum 