Issue 8 July 2002
In this issue are the following articles:
The marginal cost of electricity: What is water worth?
Winter is upon us and the nation's attention once again turns to the state of the southern hydro-lakes, watching to see if a power crisis is imminent. Last year a drought caused wholesale prices to increase dramatically, leaving many asking how can truly competitive prices be so high when water is free? Graeme Guthrie and Steen Videbeck explain there's more to marginal cost of electricity than meets the eye.
Authors:
Graeme Guthrie, Steen Videbeck
To do or not to do? Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to expect a penalty...
The self-professed armchair economist SE Landsburg once said that most of economics can be summarised in four words "people respond to incentives" - the rest is commentary.
Authors:
Judy Kavanagh, Alice Tipping
When Oscar met Nobel
Mystifying equations written on glass, hallucinations triggering rampant paranoia, cryptic newspaper collaged walls. These are scenes from the multi-Oscar winning film A Beautiful Mind, based on the extraordinary life of mathematician, schizophrenic and Nobel Laureate John Forbes Nash Jr. Steen Videbeck explains the famous theory behind a most beautiful mind.
Author:
Steen Videbeck
The small country competitive dilemma: Can a country trade its way out?
Like New Zealand, Canada has a large neighbour. Patrick Hughes looks at the Canadian response to the small country competitive dilemma.
Author:
Patrick Hughes
Tertiary education in New Zealand: Who is being served?
In a recent review of the not-for-profit sector, economist and academic, Edward Glaeser contends that in the absence of competition, not-for-profit organisations are more often run in the interests of staff than in the interests of their clients or funders. However, he argues that competition acts as a powerful check on these interests and may serve to keep the not-for-profit organisations oriented towards its customers. ISCR Executive Director Lewis Evans and Victoria University Pro-Vice Chancellor (Commerce and International) Neil Quigley take a look at the tertiary education sector in New Zealand.
Sense and Sensibility are the penalties imposed under New Zealand's Fair Trading Act rational?
The theory of optimal penalties dates back to a paper on crime and punishment written by Nobel Prize winning economist Gary Becker, published in 1968. The economic approach holds that individuals, including criminals, make decisions by weighing up the respective costs and benefits of alternative courses of action. On the other side of the thin blue line, law makers and social planners aim to minimise the harm caused by criminal activity, recognising that there are costs associated with detecting, convicting and punishing offenders. The theory of optimal penalties is thus consumed with efficiency - finding a balance between the harm caused by crime and the costs of deterrence.
Author:
ISCR
A tax to subsidise low quality providers in the export education industry
Victoria University Pro-Vice Chancellor (Commerce and International) Neil Quigley and ISCR Executive Director Lewis Evans question the justification for a new levy on institutions involved in export education.
No-fault at whose cost?
What should governments do when the cost of public liability insurance becomes crippling? Study the New Zealand experience say Bronwyn Howell, Judy Kavanagh and Lisa Marriott in the latest issue of the Australian policy journal Agenda
