The news that banks have dramatically increased their fee income yet again will come as no surprise to most of us. Less significant in macro terms, but far more drastic for those affected, has been the atrocious practise of selling tiny debts to loan sharks, who will then sell people’s houses from under them at sheriff’s auctions. Given that these institutions exist only by the grace of the Australian government, it’s time to give them the same kind of message that Telstra received recently.

It’s time to offer the banks an offer they can’t refuse (unless they’re feeling lucky). Either withdraw entirely from the prudential regulation system, and stand on their own credit, or accept the fact that the public, as the residual risk-bearer, is their ultimate owner, and act accordingly.

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My introduction to futures markets came in a 1960s TV show called Dobie Gillis, most notable for the ‘beatnik’ character of Maynard G. Krebs, played by Bob Denver, later the eponymous Gilligan of Gilligan’s Island*. In one episode, Dobie’s high school class was assigned to do a fantasy investment exercise, and Dobie along with a cute & smart fellow student chose the egg futures markets. The smart student’s moves always paid off, and Dobie decided to copy them all in real life, building up a huge profit. Finally, the smart student announced she was selling, but Dobie intoxicated with success, decided to keep playing. This went on for a few days of rising prices, but finally when Dobie announced he had held on yet again, the fellow student said, with some horror, “But, Dobie, today is spot day”. The final scene was of the back room of Dobie’s dad’s store, filled to the rafters with the eggs on which Dobie had been forced to take physical delivery.**

Today’s Fin, with a piece by Andrew Leigh*** praising betting markets on events like unemployment rates and so on, brought this episode to mind. It struck me that the case for weak-form market efficiency (the market price incorporates all publicly available information) is much better in a market with a spot date in the near future, as is typical of real betting markets. If you are betting on a race to be run this afternoon at 3, there’s not much point in trying to track movements in the market: you’re better off backing whichever horse is offering the best odds relative to your best estimate of winning probability. More generally, markets with a spot date in the near future ought to be relatively immune to bubbles.

While I’m on the topic, I thought I would repost a piece I wrote before the 2007 elections which, I think, puts a bit of a dent in claims that betting markets really represent the superior wisdom of crowds: in this case, the polls were right long before the pundits and the punters came in last. Of course, one data point doesn’t constitute proof, but supporters of betting markets have made strong claims on the basis of fairly limited data.

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As governments and the WHO wrestle with the decision on whether to divert resources from the production of seasonal flu vaccines to develop a vaccine against H1NI (swine) flu, I thought I’d repost this piece from 2005.

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I wrote this pre-budget piece for Crikey, but it doesn’t seem to have appeared on their website. I’ll check on this, but in the meantime, here it is

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I’m writing a review article about Akerlof and Shiller’s new book, Animal Spirits. In doing so, it struck me that I had most of a new entry for my list of refuted economic doctrines, except that the target this time has not been refuted so much as rendered obsolete by events. I’m talking about New Keynesianism an approach to macroeconomics, to which Akerlof and Shiller have made some of the biggest contributions, but which they have now, on my interpretation, repudiated.

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[I posted this at Crooked Timber a day or two ago and got quite a lively response].

While the aesthetic defence of religion offered by Terry Eagleton might appeal to a small fraction of the intelligentsia, a far more common belief is that, regardless of truth value, religious belief makes people better citizens, and should therefore be encouraged.

Although this claim has various components, the most obvious social benefits of religious belief, and the biggest source of concern about the adverse consequences of unbelief, is the doctrine of an afterlife in which good actions will be rewarded and bad ones punished. Back in the 19th century, lots of people were really worried about this and, even in the 21st it’s a common theme in US discussions of religion.

But do we really need religion for this?

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I didn’t actually present this in my debate with Henry Ergas last night, since he wasn’t using Powerpoint, but readers might find it interesting.

3Mb PDF or 2 Mb Keynote file

I’ve long promised a post on Austrian Business Cycle Theory, and here it is. For those who would rather get straight to the conclusion, it’s one I share in broad terms with most of the mainstream economists who’ve looked at the theory, from Tyler Cowen , Bryan Caplan

and Gordon Tullock at the libertarian/Chicago end of the spectrum to Keynesians like Paul Krugman and Brad DeLong.

To sum up, although the Austrian School was at the forefront of business cycle theory in the 1920s, it hasn’t developed in any positive way since then. The central idea of the credit cycle is an important one, particularly as it applies to the business cycle in the presence of a largely unregulated financial system. But the Austrians balked at the interventionist implications of their own position, and failed to engage seriously with Keynesian ideas.

The result (like orthodox Marxism) is a research program that was active and progressive a century or so ago but has now become an ossified dogma. Like all such dogmatic orthodoxies, it provides believers with the illusion of a complete explanation but cease to respond in a progressive way to empirical violations of its predictions or to theoretical objections. To the extent that anything positive remains, it is likely to be developed by non-Austrians such as the post-Keynesian followers of Hyman Minsky.

Update There’s a fascinating discussion linking to this post here. In French, but clear and simply written. Anyone with high school French and a familiarity with the issues should be able to follow the main points.

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My column in yesterday’s Fin was a riff on these marvellously named Republican opponents of environmental protection, and the prevalence of delusional conspiracy theories on the political right.

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American adults under 30 are almost evenly divided on the question

Which is a better system – capitalism or socialism?

37% prefer capitalism, 33% socialism, and 30% are undecided. For the US population as a whole, only a bare majority prefer capitalism (53% prefer capitalism, 20% socialism, and 27% are undecided.)

Granted that socialism can mean anything from “Policies adopted by Joe Stalin” to “Policies deplored by Joe the Plumber”, these are quite striking results, and certainly help to explain why the invocation of the socialist bogy by JTP and other Republican hacks has been so ineffective (to the point that JTP has recently taken to adding a “neo” prefix, which certainly made both “liberal” and “conservative” scarier).

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