Tag: economics

Peak Environmental Impact

if true (requires a lot more study) this would be major good news

It is now conceivable that the human race will reach “peak impact” before the end of this century.

The decoupling is a breaking of the link between economic and population growth on the one hand and resource use on the other. Some decoupling indicators from the report: The per-capita farmland requirement has declined by half in the last half-century. In absolute terms, cropland has expanded 13% and pasture 9% in that time period, but the sum of the 2 has remained stable since the mid-1990s. Total water consumption increased by 170% between 1950 and 1995, but per-capita water consumption peaked around 1980 and declined thereafter. The least decoupled environmental impact is greenhouse gas emissions from energy: global per-capita emissions increased by nearly 40% between 1965 and 2013.

1B Americans

Interesting speculation:

an open-borders America of a billion people would, in substance, be as different a polity from the polity that the United States of America is today, as the Roman Empire of the 2nd century AD was from the Roman Republic of the 3rd century BC

2020-02-22: It’s disappointing that open borders are outside the Overton window: Restrictions on immigration are the equivalent of leaving “trillion-dollar bills on the sidewalk.”

Learning to Speak Lingerie

Valentine’s Day is one of the few times of the year when most China Star customers are male. Usually, it’s only women in the shop, and often they buy the lightweight, form-fitting dresses that Chinese dealers refer to as suiyi, or “casual clothes.” No Upper Egyptian woman would wear such garments in public, but it’s acceptable at home. This is one reason that the market for clothing is so profitable: Egyptian women need 2 separate wardrobes, for their public and their private lives. Usually, they also acquire a 3rd line of clothing, which is designed to be sexy. The 2 women in niqabs quickly found 2 items that the sheikh approved of: matching sets of thongs and skimpy, transparent nightgowns, 1 in red and the other in blue. The sheikh began to bargain with Chen Yaying, who runs the shop with her husband, Liu Jun. In Egypt, they go by the names Kiki and John, and both are tiny—Kiki barely reached the sheikh’s chest. She’s 24 years old but could pass for a bookish teen-ager; she wears rectangular glasses and a loose ponytail. “This is Chinese!” she said, in heavily accented Arabic, holding up the garments. “Good quality!” She dropped the total price to 160 pounds, a little more than $20, but the sheikh offered 150.

Biosimilars

Unlike the more common small-molecule drugs, biologics generally exhibit high molecular complexity, and may be quite sensitive to changes in manufacturing processes. Follow-on manufacturers do not have access to the originator’s molecular clone and original cell bank, nor to the exact fermentation and purification process, nor to the active drug substance. They do have access to the commercialized innovator product. Various factors, such as safety, pricing, manufacturing, entry barriers, physician acceptance, and marketing, will make the biosimilar market develop different from the generic market. The high cost to enter the market and the size of the biologic drug market make entry attractive but risky.

Britain slaveholder bailout

The compensation of Britain’s 46K slave owners was the largest bailout in British history until the bailout of the banks in 2009. Not only did the slaves receive nothing, under another clause of the act they were compelled to provide 45 hours of unpaid labour each week for their former masters, for a further 4 years after their supposed liberation. In effect, the enslaved paid part of the bill for their own manumission.

Robot Boost

Researchers analyzed the economic impact of industrial robots, using a panel of industries in 17 countries from 1993-2007. Industrial robots increased both labor productivity and value added. The use of robots raised countries’ growth rates by 0.37%. Robots increased both wages and total factor productivity. While robots had no significant effect on total hours worked, there is some evidence that they reduced the hours of both low-skilled and middle-skilled workers.

The Education Myth

the global labor force’s average time in school went from 2.8 to 8.3 years from 1960-2010. How much richer should these countries have expected to become? In 1965, France had a labor force that averaged less than 5 years of schooling and a per capita income of $14K (at 2005 prices). In 2010, countries with a similar level of education had a per capita income of less than $1000. Moreover, much of this increase cannot possibly be attributed to education, as workers in 2010 had the advantage of technologies that were 50 years more advanced than those in 1960. Clearly, something other than education is needed to generate prosperity.

Revisiting retirement

we’ve run out of options for economic stimulus. it is time to raise the retirement age, commensurate with huge increases in life expectancy since social security was enacted.

We investigate the options for policymakers given this shortage of traditional ammunition, including: (i) reducing the risk of recession; (ii) reverting to quantitative easing; (iii) moving away from inflation targeting; (iv) using fiscal policy to replace monetary policy; (v) using fiscal and monetary policy together in a bid to introduce so-called “helicopter money”; and (vi) pushing interest rates higher through structural reforms designed to lower excess savings, most obviously via increases in retirement age. We conclude that only the final option is likely to lead to economic success. Politically, however, it seems implausible. As a result, we are faced with a serious shortage of effective policy lifeboats.

$5.3T Energy Subsidy waste

Subsidies for coal, oil and natural gas were $5.3T worldwide in 2015 (6.5% of global GDP). Undercharging for global warming accounts for 22% of the subsidy, air pollution 46%, broader vehicle externalities 13%, supply costs 11%, and general consumer taxes 8%. China was the biggest subsidizer ($1.8T), followed by the United States ($0.6T), and Russia, the European Union, and India (each with about $0.3T). Eliminating subsidies would have reduced global CO2 emissions by 21% and fossil fuel air pollution deaths 55%, while raising revenue of 4%, and social welfare by 2.2% of global GDP. The figure likely exceeds government health spending across the world, estimated by the World Health Organization at 6% of global GDP, but for the different year of 2013. They correspond to one of the largest negative externality ever estimated.

Low housing supply

Rent Will Remain Too Damn High for the Foreseeable Future

But as the US economy has improved, people have been bursting out of their parents’ basements. Estimates of new household formation have surged in recent months. The thing is, these folks don’t go from 0-to-homeowner in a matter of months. They rent. And that’s why rental vacancy rates also have fallen back to levels last seen in the early 1990s.