Author Archives: Brian Easton

The Model Economist: Bryan Philpott (1921-2000)

This entry was posted in History of Ideas, Methodology, Philosophy, Listener, Macroeconomics & Money on 19th August 2000 by Brian Easton.

Listener 19 August, 2000

Keywords: History of Ideas, Methodology & Philosophy; Macroeconomics & Money;

Just before he was struck down by his final illness, 79-year-old Bryan Philpott completed the last of his many research papers. It reviewed the work he done at the Research Project on Economic Planning (RPEP) over its thirty years, first as McCarthy Professor of Economics at Victoria University of Wellington, and then in retirement. The paper reflects an impressive research achievement, but also includes and was intended to include, so he told me a powerful rebuke to the economic policy of the last 15 years. To explain how, requires some preliminaries.

For Better or Worse

This entry was posted in History of Ideas, Methodology, Philosophy, Listener on 5th August 2000 by Brian Easton.

Listener 5 August, 2000

Keywords: History of Ideas, Methodology & Philosophy;

At the heart of much economic analysis is the belief is that it is better to have more material goods and services. The assumption underlies the economic policy objective that we should aim for higher real incomes and production because that means we can (sustainably) consume more and have more material possessions. Economists – or at least the good ones – have been aware of the importance of the assumption, but until recently they were not able to evaluate it in any scientific way. Now that we can, ‘more means better’ proves to be only marginally correct, not nearly as important as economic policy assumes.

Matter Of Opinion

This entry was posted in Macroeconomics & Money on 22nd July 2000 by Brian Easton.

Listener
22 July, 2000

Keywords Macroeconomics & Money; Statistics

The premier survey of business opinion has been produced by the NZIER since 1961. When I looked at in the 1980s, I was struck by how unhelpful the business opinion question was in comparison to the questions of what the business respondents had actually done, and what they planned to do in future. These matters were not their opinions, which may or may not be well informed. They are the actions the respondents have taken and are going to take in their business lives, on such things as investment, employment, output, and inventories.

Metrology and the Economy (lecture)

This entry was posted in Business & Finance on 14th July 2000 by Brian Easton.

Paper to the National Measurement Conference, 14 July, 2000.

Keywords Business & Finance

In October, the Mars Climate Orbiter spacecraft burnt up in the Martian atmosphere because the acceleration data for controlling its thrusters had been provided in pounds of force (US customary units) but entered into the space craft’s computer as newtons (the SI unit). Little information was obtained from the trip, so most of its $US240 million was a complete waste. This is a spectacular example of how measurement failure can be costly, but in some ways it is misleading. The costs of a failure to have a sound measurement system are generally more subtle than that, as are the benefits. In total, a system failure from an inefficient measurement system may be relatively more expensive than the loss of a single spacecraft.

Unchanging Fashion: Pete Seeger’s Journey Of the Spirit

This entry was posted in Literature and Culture on 14th July 2000 by Brian Easton.

Music in the Air, No 10, Winter 2000, p.6-9.

Keywords: Literature and Culture;

Looking back over eighty years of life, as Pete Seeger may well have done in May 1999, one seeks patterns and consistencies. There is the big pattern, of course, the living the eighty years, and the consistency of having been a professional folk singer for the last sixty, with his father, Charles, as a collector of folk songs before that. From the songs he wrote and sang, one might see Seeger’s life as a jumble of topics and engagements, held together by an enthusiasm for singing, considerable technical musical skills, and an involvement in radical causes.

Budget Philosophies

This entry was posted in Listener, Macroeconomics & Money on 11th July 2000 by Brian Easton.

Listener 8 July, 2000.

Keywords: Macroeconomics & Money;

Just as nostalgia aint what it use to be, neither are government budget presentations. Once they were given in the evening when financial markets were closed, and were filled with surprises such as excise tax increases. Today, the budget is presented in the afternoon, there are few surprises (tax increases are announced at other times). The reduction in significance may be no bad thing. But the media still treats the budget as one of the great political events of the year. A few days later the news returns to normal, and the dispassionate observer wonders what it was all about.

The Economic Status and Health Status Project

This entry was posted in Distributional Economics, Statistics on 5th July 2000 by Brian Easton.

By Suzie Carson & Brian Easton

New Zealand Journal of Social Policy December 2000, p.121-128. Based on a paper presented to the 1999 Conference of the New Zealand Statistical Association, Wellington, July 5-7.

Executive Summary

The increasing use of the Household Economic Survey for policy purposes raises issues about the assumptions which are used for transforming the unit records into aggregates which underpin the social policy analysis. This paper reports upon an HRC funded project to investigate the relationship between personal health status and economic status (especially location in the household distribution, but also in relation to other measures). The project uses unit records of the Household Economic Survey for 1994/5-6/7 years when personal health status was recorded, using both objective and subjective measures. The paper explores some of the processing issues which the analysis is addressing.

Economics in the Healthcare Sector

This entry was posted in Health on 30th June 2000 by Brian Easton.

Pharmac Annual Review 2000, p.24

Keywords: Health;

It is increasingly common for an economist has been approached by some group lobbying for the introduction of a new therapy, or perhaps by the government who wants some guidance. The therapy is expensive, and so the question of whether it can be used involves issues of costs and benefits. Answering that question or, more precisely, making an economic contribution to answering that question is rarely easy, and yet the welfare of patients depends on it. Not only the welfare of those who may be treated but, given the overall budget constraint, diverting resources to the treatment of one disease will leave others without treatment or on a waiting list.

Global Warnings

This entry was posted in Globalisation & Trade, Listener on 24th June 2000 by Brian Easton.

Listener:24 June, 2000.

Keywords: Globalisation & Trade;

I probably read a major article or a book on globalization every fortnight. One usually finishes thinking the authors do not know what they are talking about either. ‘Globalization’ means so many different things, even to the same writer, that one ends up in confusion. The best I can conclude is that massive technological changes are changing the potential economic geography of the world. Globalization is the financial, economic, social and political response. Different writers look at different facets of the whole, and miss the complexity of the totality.

Sonja Davies: 1923–2005

This entry was posted in Labour Studies, Political Economy & History on 16th June 2000 by Brian Easton.

Chapter 12, The Nationbuilders. (This was published in 2000, and does not record that Sonja died in June 2005.)

Keywords: Labour Studies; Political Economy & History;

The choice of people to be included in this book is based on a list of over forty names. For reasons similar to those of The Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, only dead nationbuilders were considered. There were a number of women in the list, but despite my trying – with a grim political correctness – none fitted into the story the book was telling. (For instance, Te Puea was building the Tainui nation.) It is, after all, but one story from all of those of the New Zealand nation. Those who saw early drafts often drew attention to the omission, but could not suggest a suitable candidate.

The (Economic) Life Of Harry

This entry was posted in Listener, Political Economy & History on 10th June 2000 by Brian Easton.

Listener 10 June, 2000

Keywords: Political Economy & History;

So much history in New Zealand ignores the economic context in which the people’s lives take place – censored out, like death itself. Attending a recent funeral of an ordinary New Zealander, it occurred to me that I could illustrate my point in his life.

Self-interest Rates

This entry was posted in Listener, Macroeconomics & Money on 27th May 2000 by Brian Easton.

Listener: 27 May, 2000

Keywords: Macroeconomics & Money;

New Zealand’s economic debate can be bizarre. Take the recent rises in the Reserve Bank base interest rate. Hardly anybody made the point that world interest rates are rising. The American Fed(eral Reserve Bank) is putting up its base rate, the European Central Bank is too, so is Australia’s Reserve Bank (RBA), and so on. Can we ignore a rising tide? The rest of the world could then borrow unlimited quantities from the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ), a scenario too absurd to contemplate. Something horrible would happen to our monetary system and economy if we ignore what happens overseas.

Delayed Impact

This entry was posted in Listener, Macroeconomics & Money on 13th May 2000 by Brian Easton.

Listener 13 May, 2000.

Keywords: Macroeconomics & Money;

To understand the consequences of dramatic change in share prices, think instead about housing. Suppose you are told the value of your house has doubled. Suppose it makes no difference to your behaviour (except a bit of skiting, disguised as grumbling about higher local authority rates). When sometime later you are told your house price has halved, it wont matter much either (except you have another excuse for grumbling).

the Anti-economist Papers, by Paul Bieleski

This entry was posted in History of Ideas, Methodology, Philosophy, Listener on 6th May 2000 by Brian Easton.

Listener: 6 May, 2000.

Keywords: History of Ideas, Methodology & Philosophy;

The economics profession had a high standing 40 years ago. Clergymen would mention that before they took orders they took an arts degree in economics. An oft repeated joke was the accountant who wanted to be an economist but did not have the personality. It is ages since a priest made that confession to me, and today the joke reverses the professions. It is not that today’s economists lack the passions that drove their predecessors. Rather, the morality has changed, and with it the public perception. Whatever the individual ethics of today’s economists, the discipline has been increasingly developed around the notion that people primarily pursue their self-interest. Even altruism is marginalised, explained as another way of pursuing selfishness. Economics may be the only “profession” that does not have any code of ethics.

Harry: Harold Stewart Parnell Easton: 12-7-18 to 29-4-00.

This entry was posted in Listener, Political Economy & History on 2nd May 2000 by Brian Easton.

My oration for Dad at his funeral service, 2 May 2000.

Keywords: Political Economy & History;

Tena kotou katoa. Friends of my father, and so friends of mine, and of his family, welcome to this service of remembrance of Harold Stewart Parnell Easton.

Free V Fair

This entry was posted in Environment & Resources, Listener on 29th April 2000 by Brian Easton.

Listener: 29 April, 2000 Keywords: Globalisation & Trade; The free trade versus fair trade dispute is an example of the way policy debates can be dominated by extremism. Economists often pontificate on the topic with an authority that their theories do not justify. Non-economists take up ideological positions, relying on the economists’ claims. What economic…
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The Gulf Between East and West

This entry was posted in Globalisation & Trade, Listener on 15th April 2000 by Brian Easton.

Listener 15 April, 2000

Keywords Globalisation & Trade;

The Americans who first drilled for Arabian Gulf oil in the 1950s smoked tobacco. Despite an Islamic prohibition, the locals took up the habit, which steadily spread across the country. (Today lung cancer rates in the oil regions of Saudi Arabia are about double the national average, which is climbing.)

Postcard from Arabia

This entry was posted in Globalisation & Trade, Listener on 1st April 2000 by Brian Easton.

Listener 1 April, 2000

Keywords Globalisation & Trade;

Of Arrowtown, Denis Glover wrote there was “Gold in the ceilings/ gold in the floors”. He did not mean literally: rather gold mining has shaped the town. Saudi Arabia is shaped by oil. It holds more than a quarter of the world’s known oil reserves, and is finding more. Currently the kingdom supplies about an eighth of total production, and is flush with the revenue from its sales.

A Pantheon Of Seven ….

This entry was posted in History of Ideas, Methodology, Philosophy, Listener on 18th March 2000 by Brian Easton.

Listener: 18March, 2000.

Keywords: History of Ideas, Methodology & Philosophy

Of course there were economists before Adam Smith (1723-1790) but he was the first to offer a reasonably comprehensive account of economic behaviour, founding the “classical” school of economics with its concern of how economies grow. His Wealth of Nations, published in 1776 on the eve of the American Revolution (which he supported), is a book which people quote rather than read, so its richness, its humanity and its subtlety tends to be lost. Smith, a professor of moral philosophy, later customs collector (and not as endeared to free trade as one might think), was a close friend of David Hume (1711-1776) who was also a Scottish philosopher and economist.