Being an economist is great. But there is a downside. A lot of people wind up annoyed by some parts of fantasy worlds in books and movies, but economists get annoyed by very different things.HBO’s Game of Thrones finally ended this week. The last two seasons brought increasing fan annoyance: the plotting and pace made far less sense than in prior seasons.For those who haven’t followed, Game of Thrones largely takes place on the continent of Westeros, in a fantasy... Read more

Professor Gary Libecap is something of a god in economics. In a prior life, I would tell my undergraduate students about the pantheon of the Econ Gods. Libecap’s work in environmental economics easily put him in the pantheon. It has also made him Distinguished Professor of Corporate Environmental Management and Distinguished Professor of Economics at UCSB. Read more

New Zealand’s freshwater management is in need of a refresh. The kinds of systems that work for allocating and managing water when water is abundant are not the systems that work when water becomes increasingly scarce. And increasing pressure on our aquifers and rivers has made water increasingly scarce in places like Canterbury. The problem is well-recognised. We have had decades of reports telling us of the looming problems, not only in water abstraction (taking water from the aquifers and... Read more

Everyone knows the old joke about the traveller who, on asking directions to a better place, is told he shouldn’t have started from here. But stepping back from it a little, we always start from here. Read more

Last October, Minister for the Environment David Parker announced a two-year agenda for an improved freshwater management system. Following on from an election campaign in which freshwater management featured prominently, the announcement should not have come as a surprise. Read more

It’s too easy for bad statistics to influence policy. About a decade ago, BERL added up every dollar spent by heavier drinkers, counted some other costs twice, and claimed that alcohol use cost New Zealand $4.8 billion per year. The number still floats around when someone wants to justify the next round of restrictions on drinking. So I pay a bit of attention to dodgy-looking statistics.The Los Angeles Times last week reported on Chinese youth boot camps encouraging boys to... Read more

“Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is utterly impossible to parody a Creationist in such a way that someone won’t mistake it for the genuine article.” Poe’s Law warns that without strong warnings, parody will confuse people. We occasionally get into a bit of a pickle with the third column in our Insights newsletter. In this spot, we take the opportunity to have some fun – a light-hearted take on the week’s events; a fun... Read more

Essayist and author Nassim Taleb is more than a little tedious on Twitter. But he gets one big thing very right. Skin in the game matters. Read more

It seemed a simple enough question. It was, really. So why did it take more than two months to get an answer under the Official Information Act? Read more

Big organisations get up to a lot of stuff that looks pretty silly from the outside – and even from the inside. Corporate retreats with ridiculous team-building exercises. Awkward social functions. Corporate family picnics when you would all rather prefer to be out with your own friends. Read more