Mid-week links

Using the National Accounts to better estimate changes in well being (PPT link) – from the OECD Measuring Progress Agenda.  Aka - Why I don’t feel like I benefit of changes in GDP.

A better comparison of the cost of living in cities around the world?  Numbeo provides a user generated cost of living index for any city in the world, with prices updated continuously as users add price data. 

One interesting comparison - Consumer Prices in Munich are 14.65% lower than in Brisbane, and

Consumer Prices Including Rent in Munich are 5.13% lower than in Brisbane. 

Who desires a longer commute? Apparently a 7% of people desire an extra 5 minutes commuting time (from here) -

In one of their studies, Mokhtarian and Redmond examined the commute (i.e. the trip to and from work). They conducted a survey in the San Francisco Bay area which asked subjects what duration their ideal commute would be, and whether their current commute is the “right” length or not.

Counterintuitively, very few people expressed a desire for a commute of “zero.” The most frequent response put the ideal commute at 15-19 minutes, and almost a third of the sample actually said their ideal commute was over 20 minutes. Only 1.2 percent answered zero; this surprising result was largely borne out in follow-up focus groups, where subjects were prompted that zero was a permissible answer.

A comparison of respondents’ ideal commutes and their actual commutes revealed that while most (52 percent) wanted their journey to work to be shorter, 42 percent reported their commute was about the right length and seven percent (mostly those with short commutes) actually wished it would take them an additional five minutes or more longer to get to work. On average, people wanted a commute of around 16 minutes.

I suspect there may have been confusion from respondents about what the question was asking – Do you desire to live in a location where the commute is X (longer, shorter, zero etc)? Or, do you want the commute from your existing location to work to be X (longer, shorter, zero etc)? Or, what is the ideal commute time from your current location with current transport systems?

More on the Peltzman Effect - Night clubs are employing emergency medics to monitor the crowd, yet the Australian Medical association has concerns that it gives a false sense of security to revellers. I can just imagine the conversation – “If you want to experiment with new drug X, do it here because they have medical staff!”

Finally, from The Onion, a spoof economics and finance article that might just make it to the front page of an Australian daily newspaper.

WASHINGTON—Some sort of tax cut or earnings or money or something was reported in economic news this week in further evidence that a lot of financial- related things have been going on lately.

According to numerous articles and economics segments from major media outlets, experts on banks and such have become increasingly concerned over a new extension or rates or a proposal or compromise that could signal fewer investments, and dollars, and so on.

The experts confirmed that the stimulus has played a role.

"This is a clear sign of a changing cycle," some top guy at one of the big banks in New York said of purchasing power parity or possibly rate of return during a recent interview on CNN. "Which isn't to say that a sustained drop in wages couldn't still occur, even if the interest paid on reserves is lowered."

"In short, it's possible but not probable that growth could outpace our initial expectations," added the banking guy, who went on to say other money things, too. "It depends on investor sentiment."

The man, who also apparently mentioned the Nasdaq, the Dow, and the Japan one at some point or another, talked for a really long time about credit or reductions or possibly all these figures, which somehow relate to China.

Greece was also involved.

Prison, parenting, selection bias, and measuring success

In both parenting and the legal system one must carefully consider the role of punishment.  Recently, the discussion surrounding imprisonment has become focussed on rehabilitation, using recidivism rates inappropriately as a statistical measuring stick of success.  This seems to be the product of confusing success in parenting with success in crime prevention.

Updates and a CityCycle apology

Plastic bag banning continues to gain momentum

Well known demographer Bernard Salt had a stoush with Dick Smith in a little documentary a few months ago discussing Australia’s population growth.  Now he is back with more nonsense.

Brisbane’s CityCycle scheme, from my observations, appears to be well used.  I was pessimistic about the potential take-up rate of the scheme, but in the past six weeks of operation I have seen 27 people using these bikes – about 26 more than I expected. I do however live across the road from one station, work in a building adjacent to a station, and cycle past another half dozen twice per day.

Interestingly, I have seen one person using the scheme helmetless and smoking while talking on a mobile phone (I don’t have a problem with this if they are not riding dangerously, which they weren’t), and one bloke walk up to the bikes in work attire and promptly retrieve a helmet from his backpack before shooting off on a hire bike.  I can only hope that with more (are there more cyclist, or just people deciding to use the scheme to avoid bike theft and wear and tear?) cyclists there will be a strong push for more user-friendly bike lanes.

And just for fun, a hilarious rap battle between Keynes and Hayek to entertain the inner economics nerd.

Sin tax myths – why smokers reduce health costs

Smokers have been the target of Australia's latest sin tax. Meanwhile, debate continues over using sin taxes to reduce consumption of 'unhealthy' foods such as soft drinks and confectionary.

(The word unhealthy is used quite loosely due to the fact that there is sufficient uncertainty about health – Are eggs good or bad these days? Margarine? – and because it is typically not the food itself, but the quantity consumed of a single food that is unhealthy.  Almost any food item consumed in excess will be unhealthy).

The primary arguments in favour of sin taxes are that

1.      the taxes reduce ‘harmful’ or ‘unhealthy’ consumption, and

2.      the taxes raised offset likely health costs such behaviours incur on others.

Unfortunately neither argument is compelling.

Public and Private schools – evidence from economics?

As an Australian parent in 2010, the public versus private school debate is hard to avoid.  In a society where private schooling is becoming the norm, yet literacy and numeracy skills are stagnating, how does one objectively analyse the costs and benefits of school choice?

First, let me say that school choie is just one factor determining vocational, personal and emotional skills during adolescence.  Genetics, parenting, the home environment, peer groups, sports and other club activities, amongst many factors, all contribute to shaping young minds. 

Additionally, the composition of students at the school plays a strong role in determining academic outcomes.  Many private schools for example, offer academic scholarships.  If those students had instead attended the local public school, any difference in average academic results may be greatly reduced.

How then does one separate the impact of school choice from these other factors?

Without the opportunity to conduct controlled studies, for example, by studying twins who attend different schools while holding all else constant, the best analysis of the measureable benefits of private schooling would be a statistical test of various measures of ‘success’, controlling for external factors such as parental intelligence and education, household income and location, and child’s intelligence prior to arrival at the school.

Unfortunately, in this debate one of the most overlooked considerations is what measure of 'success' would potentially make private schools ‘better’ than public schools. Is it simply a matter of final grades and tertiary entrance scores, or do parents (and children) value a broader measure of success? Does a public school with more diverse student cultural backgrounds give a better social experience, or does a private school offer more valuable professional connections?

The results of any statistical study will necessarily be narrowly defined to reflect the impact of school choice on a single measure (such as academic test scores), ignoring social benefits and opportunities for extracurricular achievement. 

So what do economists and social scientists have to say?

Talking climate with Warwick McKibbin

I met RBA board member Professor Warwick McKibbin yesterday.  Alas, his reserved academic demeanour was a successful deterrent to a gruelling discussion on monetary policy and his thoughts on Australian housing.

I was, however, enlightened about his academic research and particular area of expertise – macro-economic modelling and climate change.

For such a diminutive guy he manages to raise a large public profile and promote intense debates on matters of macro-economic policy.  He was intensely critical of the government stimulus package, although many economists see it as very well implemented in hindsight.  


Some of the critics of the implementation of Australia's fiscal stimulus fail to see the broader political picture.  Professor Tony Makin, for example, argued that the fiscal stimulus was not necessary because adjustments in exchange rates and interest rates absorbed most of the impact of the crisis.  Yet he gives no credit to domestic impact of fiscal stimulus from abroad, particularly with our main trading partners.  His argument was that we should have been free riding on the stimulus of other nations.

The broader political picture reveals that there was an explicit agreement by G20 nations in November 2008 to take coordinate fiscal action to avoid this very issue.  In an international context our stimulus appears light on – maybe we still did partly free-ride.

But McKibbin is clearly most passionate about climate policy, driving hard his ideas for coordinated global action – The McKibbin-Wilcoxen Blueprint for climate policy.

Rates surprise

The RBA Board decided to raise official interest rates by 25 basis points today against my, and many other economists, expectations. One wonders if they take pleasure in proving forecasts wrong, or whether they are simply following the cardinal rule of monetary policy - defy expectations.

Unfortunately I think it is the destabilising thing to do, and maintain that we may see this decision reversed in the future.  With a housing market waiting to crumble, tourism and education exports fading, commodity prices peaking and inflation already moderating,  expect some sullen economic data this festive season.

Australia not an island away from world’s troubles – recession, bank runs, and printing cash

The continued media hype around Australia’s economic stability and security can be partly attributed to the fact that, by official figures, we avoided a ‘technical recession’ during 2008/09, and also that ‘the health and strength' of Australia's banking system played a major factor in domestic economic outcomes following the financial crisis (here for example).

Griffith University’s Professor Tony Makin, however, has a little more to say about whether Australia actually avoided recession. The answer depends on your definition, and we are unique in that respect.

In the aftermath of the GFC in September 2008, Australia's nominal GDP, real GDP measured on an income basis and on a production basis, as well as real GDP per person, all fell over two successive quarters, as did various other national income measures that account for the slump in export commodity prices (or terms of trade) at the time.

Of the many national accounts series the Australian Bureau of Statistics publish, the only one indicating there wasn't a recession was the real, or price level adjusted, national expenditure series.

In the US, a recession dating committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research uses a battery of macro-economic measures, not just the somewhat arbitrary two successive quarters of negative real GDP.

If the behaviour of Australia's business cycle in the aftermath of the GFC had been assessed by an independent committee of economists with reference to a broader range of macroeconomic indicators in this way, a recession, albeit mild, would most likely have been declared for 2008-09. But this would not have been of great concern because, due to greater labour market flexibility, unemployment did not rise anywhere near as much as in the recessions of the early 80s and early 90s.(here)

No doubt business people would have wondered how official figures could have been so out of touch with on the ground realities during early 2009, but a mere statistical discrepancy kept the headlines optimistic.

And as far as the ‘health and strength’ of our banking system, well, let’s just say a better phrase would be ‘government rescue’ of the banking system, with the deposit guarantee and massive fiscal and monetary stimulus.

This extract from the book Shitstorm: Inside Labor’s darkest Days, has far more detail on just how perilously close our own banks were to disaster.

All around the country, banks were facing unusual demands for cash. Small businesses in Queensland and Western Australia were switching their deposits from regional banks to accounts with the big four banks.

An elderly woman turned up in the branch of one bank in Queensland with a suitcase and asked to withdraw her term deposits of $100,000 or more. Once filled, she took the suitcase down to the other end of the counter and asked that it be kept in the bank's safe.

A story did the rounds of the regulators about a customer who wanted to withdraw his six-figure savings. The branch manager said he did not have that quantity of cash on hand, but offered a bank cheque, which the customer accepted, apparently unaware that the cheque was no safer than the bank writing it.

It was a silent run, unnoticed by the media. Across the country, at least tens and possibly hundreds of thousands of depositors were withdrawing their funds. Left unchecked, there would soon be queues in the street with police managing crowd control, as occurred in London at the Golders Green branch of Northern Rock a year earlier.

...

Households pulled about $5.5bn out of their banks in the 10 weeks between US financial house Lehman Brothers going broke - the onset of the global financial crisis - and the beginning of December. That is roughly 80 tonnes of cash salted away in people's homes. Mattress Bank is doing well, was the view at the Reserve. A year later, only $1.5bn had been put back.

The worst problems were in the second-tier banks, particularly Queensland's Suncorp and, in Western Australia, Bankwest. Deposits at the big four banks were surging as customers sold their shares, pulled money out of cash management trusts and put the proceeds in the bank. But at Suncorp deposits slumped by $1bn. They dropped $2bn at Bankwest.

The regulators and the government were gravely concerned for these two banks. Suncorp had total assets of $75bn and Bankwest $60bn. Bankwest was in double trouble because its British parent, HBOS, was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy.

...

Despite their preparation, the Lehman crash caught local banks by total surprise. NAB chairman Michael Chaney had set off on a 13-day rafting trip down the Grand Canyon on the day Lehman failed. He had taken a satellite phone but by the time he got it to work his share price had collapsed by almost 30 per cent. "I couldn't get a helicopter in there, so it was a five-hour climb out," he says.

Balance of payments figures show that in the immediate aftermath of the crash, Australian banks were called on to repay $50bn in short-term debt to international investors who refused to roll over their exposures.

Governments across the world were also being tested. Two weeks after the Lehman crash, Ireland's banking sector was facing an alarming run on larger deposits. The government stepped in and guaranteed all deposits and wholesale fundraising.

There was an immediate call for the British government to follow suit. Within a week, Germany, Denmark and Greece had offered unlimited deposit guarantees, while the British and a number of other European governments had increased the size of their insurance schemes. The Reserve Bank, APRA and Treasury were worried as were the chief executives Wayne Swan was talking to.

The long-standing concerns of the main banks about depositor protection were cast aside. The fate of small institutions could influence the stability of the system.

"One of the lessons of this whole period is you can have an abstract almost clinical discussion in the absence of a crisis about which institutions are systemically important and which are not. But when the crisis hits, is there any financial institution that is not systemically important?" Henry says. "It was my view back in September after the collapse of Lehman, I came to the view there was no financial institution in Australia that could not be regarded as systemically significant."

The issue was so delicate that most cabinet ministers knew nothing of what was going on.

"Some of this stuff is so sensitive, the bank guarantee could only be agreed between the Prime Minister and myself," says Swan. The government's unlimited guarantee of retail deposits went further than any other country, partly because Treasury was now concerned about capital flight.

Nothing is so firmly believed as that which least is known - or why changing your mind is evidence of learning

For a second, consider of all our major public thinkers today. They do the opposite, constantly telling how sure they are of their beliefs and criticizing their “opponents” for changing their minds. Changing your mind is a good thing, Montaigne would say. It means you’ve resisted the impulse to think you’re infallible. He wrote that as part of his profession of getting to know himself he found such “boundless depths and variety that [his] apprenticeship bears no other fruit than to make me know much there remains to learn.” If only we could internalize that attitude—instead of feeling cocky when we learn something, acknowledge that it really just taught us how much more we need to learn. (here)

While I often use this blog to vent frustration, propose new ways of looking at problems and possible unintended consequence of our actions, this does not mean that my ideas and opinions are as fixed once published. Indeed, if I look back at some of the opinions I held some years back I can imagine a heated debate between current me and previous me.

For example, for a period of time, I had a fixation about peak oil and what it meant for society. I thought in a linear manner, ascribing a reduction in total economic production possible to a reduction in technically possible rates of oil extraction, without thinking of behavioural responses and adaptations likely to take place including a renewed demand for alternative resources. My last post clearly shows that I have edged away from that view to a more reasoned and 'systems' view of economic behaviour.

I used to be passionate about ‘sustainable’ living (whatever that means). If we could only all do our little bit our environment, in the holistic sense rather than just the trees and animals sense, would be a better place to live. However, with more research into the matter it appears that while my own choices are the only ones within my control, there are offsetting effects from the actions of others that may render my personal actions ineffective.

While my ideas evolve slowly as I seek evidence one way or another, I can’t help but marvel at how quickly strongly held beliefs can change in a time of crisis, even when evidence for the new idea is as sparse as the one previously held.

CPI surprise

Today’s Australian CPI data, according to the headlines, was ‘lower than expected”.  This was the first part of a forecast I published here back in early September, when I said “Inflation and GDP will surprise on the low side in the September quarter”.  GDP figures come out with the National Accounts on the 1^st December so we had a little while to wait before assessing my prediction (1^st November is the ABS capital city price index which may also show some surprises).

But the CPI print really shouldn’t have been a surprise.  Maybe most economists have loyal wives and girlfriends (or husbands and boyfriends, although it is a male dominated profession) to do their shopping, so they wouldn’t have noticed the price declines in food, health, communications and transportation in the previous quarter.

It is evidently odd that the US can experience no price growth with a collapsing dollar, while Australia’s currency has gained strength yet our favourite media hungry economists forecast high inflation and multiple interest rate rises. The high dollar was always going to dampen any inflationary pressures.

On a far more interesting note, Google has been experimenting with a real-time price index compiled, I assume, by experimental software that searches for listed prices of items on the web.  Their index has showed a “very clear deflationary trend” for the US, and has the additional benefit of compiling the same (or at least comparable) indexes across countries.  By the same measure the UK has shown a slight inflationary trend, attributable to the weak sterling.

The automatic nature of the index also provides the possibility of releasing multiple indexes with different scope and purpose, to provide a much richer picture of prices changes across the economy.  For example, hedonic price adjustments can be in one index and not in another, and the basket of goods can be quickly changed to suit different social groups.

There has been a strong push for the ABS to publish multiple prices indexes to address these very issues, particular with regard to quality adjustments.  I have demonstrated the Lower Bound Problem of Hedonic Price Indexes before, although Rob Bray makes the argument more concisely:

Revise the approach to quality adjustment to take account of the actual utility consumers achieve from changes in product ‘quality’; and also consider an approach which reflects the extent to which products actually exist in the market place for consumers to purchase

Twice the quality is not the same as half the price.

The benefits of real-time data available to Google are yet to be fully understood by economists, but there is no doubt the Hal Varian, Google’s chief economist, will change that soon enough.

Mr Varian also discussed some of his other work on using Google’s search data for economic forecasting. He said that he is working on “predicting the present” by using real-time search data to forecast official data that are only released with time lags.

For example, searches for “unemployment insurance” may be a good tool to predict actual claims for unemployment insurance, or the unemployment rate.

This is something I have tested before with the US housing bubble, clearly demonstrating that search volumes can be amazing predictive tools.  It won’t be long before these real-time measures become commonplace in mainstream economic publications.