Ha Joon Chang: Clueless and Important

One of the projects I had imagined for this year was titled "23 ways Ha Joon Chang is wrong about Capitalism". Monday's talk at Edinburgh University greatly reminded me of the reasons behind this project: Ha Joon Chang has gained rockstar status among many of my heterodox friends by making incoherent and unsubstantiated arguments that suit their political convictions, with nothing more than mistaken cherry-picked data behind them. In Monday's talk he spoke for almost two hours, making some very strange arguments leading up to how production needs to be at the center of developmental economics. Let me discuss some of the most eye-wateringly silly stuff.

Dear Taxi Driver Who Hates Uber

This letter is intended to a particular upset bald Glaswegian in his 50s, but applies equally well to most taxi drivers I have had the great misfortune to meet:

I am writing to you regarding the trip I took Sunday night, which I only took because Uber was price surging 1.6x and I was feeling cheap. I had forgotten that when deciding to save some money and go with the regular, non-price surging taxis such as yourself, I also seriously trade down in quality.

In Defense of the Great Disruption

One of the most important talks at LibertyCon17 was given by the Swedish entrepreneur Henrik Jönsson, with the great title 'Everything you know is Dead or Dying: How to thrive after the E-pocalypse'. The topic is one that has been challenging economically illiterate people's beliefs since time immemorial and we've been pretty good at giving them various names: luddites, protectionists, conservatives, neophobes. It has to do with the most fundamental economic mechanism, call it development, dynamics or perhaps the name Schumpeter once coined: Creative Destruction. And knowledge of history and economics is key to understand why this development is beneficial.

The Enemies of Liberty: The Authoritarian Right and The Intolerant Left

My reflections of academic conferences continue; Glasgow Economic Forum last weekend, followed by Lithuanian Free Market Institute's second Colloquium on Scarcity (where I learned an important lesson for behavioural economics), and the heighpoint of the this weekend: European Students for Liberty's LibertyCon2017. The great sessions included beer as a metaphor for economic life, Wolf von Laer's very inspiration rants, Enrique Fonseca's enthusiastic tips on communication, as well as great writing tips from Bill Wirtz. The main attractions of the conference (Jeffrey Tucker, Bruce Caldwell and Tom Palmer) were even better still!

The Blind Spots of Behavioural Economics and Paternalism

The hectic Life of an Econ Student continues; last weekend saw the incredibly successful Glasgow Economic Forum, followed by a rushed econometrics assignment and an intership proposal deadline on Monday. A few days of catch-up, before I was off to the massive SFL LibertyCon 2017 in Prague preceeded by the Lithuanian Free Market Institute's Colloquium on Scarcity, Morality and Public Policy. My first time to the reknowned Cevro Institute and an entire day of conversations and debates with brilliant minds. Here's the most mindblowing revelation one of the sessions (on Entitlement) gave rise to: Behavioural Economics has some serious blind spots. 

Reflections of a Forum

And then it was suddenly over. Months of work, planning, emailing, applying for funds, booking trips, selling tickets and coming up with witty, interesting questions and themes for our incredible speakers. Always in the back of my head, nagging, pondering, visualising what it would be like. This last weekend, Glasgow Economic Foru 2017 was finally here, a little project I got involved with in early second-year that has now developed into quite something. A bold and interesting idea by upset and naïve students about bringing cool speakers to the University, expanding the very narrow (read: boring) view of what economics is/ought to be, and it has become the highlight of the year. After this intense weekend, there are so many things I wanna read, so much I want to follow up on and and so much sleep to regain. Do bear with me while I indulge in this sentimental reflection. After all, I won't be involved in organising our beautiful GEF again, as I'm spreading my wings to go elsewhere in a few months.

The Statistical Fairy Tale They Call The Gender Pay Gap

The worst time of year for anyone with an intense allergy for abused statistics is election times: of all the many things economists and math teachers have failed to convey to the public, the difference between percent and percentage points must be the worst and most prevalent one – the amount of headache I suffer from listening to journalists reporting election outcomes or polling results is incredible! Below in occurance, but definitely equalled in annoyance, are the hopelessly repeated claims about a gender pay gap. They generally occur around March 8 (or October/November, after which women apparently work for free), when good virtue signalling commentators across the political spectrum try to illustrate how women are oppressed, by reaching for the alleged Gender Pay Gap. So, pre-empting all those sensationalist claims you are about to witness tomorrow, here is a critical refutation. Similar to debates over 'Austerity', you have to see the simple truth: there is no gender pay gap.

  

The Boy Who Cried Austerity

You have all heard it – and most of you believe it: in its blatant disregard for the poor, always championing the capitalists' interest, the Coalition (and now the disgraceful Tories) have sought to violently cut back government spending, cut welfare provisions and raise taxes to reduce the budget deficit, ultimately reducing the government's debt. This 'Austerity Delusion' is allegedly hurting the poor, the disabled and anyone else I'm supposed to care for.

Everybody knows the fable (or ancient story) of a boy who cried wolf; after a few times of crying wolf nobody would believe him anymore, whether or not there was an actual wolf. We have now reached the exact opposite point: the boy yet again cries 'austerity', and everyone believes him, irrespective of whether there is any cutting of government spending going on.

Affirming Affection: John Weeks and Despising Markets

Sometimes I wonder if I live in a parallel universe, separated from the realities of my friends and peer group and most people's normal experiences. In the present world of alternative facts and intellectual echo chambers, where the social and cultural divide between, say, hip liberal world citizens in inner-city New York and traditionalist Midwest sports fan in a way is larger than perhaps ever, these kinds of experiences are to be expected. But they never cease to amaze me.