I had an inquiry about this and am posting my response

Some relatively good news on this. The volume of over-the-counter derivatives, including Credit Default Swaps, has generally been declining since the Global Financial Crisis. It’s still large and a potential source of danger.  The place to go for detailed information is the Bank of International Settlements. Here’s a press release from late 2017 with a graph for the declinehttps://www.bis.org/publ/otc_hy1711.htmI’ve attached detailed statistical data.

I suspect, though, that the real problem this time will be in more standard forms of corporate debt. The long period of low rates has allowed corporations to load up on debt. This story from Forbes is useful
https://www.forbes.com/sites/mayrarodriguezvalladares/2019/07/25/u-s-corporate-debt-continues-to-rise-as-do-problem-leveraged-loans/#4c55672a3596
And you can get statistical data for the US from the St Louis Fed
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/tags/series?t=corporate%3Bdebt

Thanks to Big Data, it would be easier to stop the toilet paper panic in its tracks.

Step 1: Announce that anyone holding more than, say, 50 rolls (per person in a household) must hand in the excess to a charity, and notify the government that they have done so.

Step 2: A week later, order supermarkets to hand over the data they collect on purchases, and raid people with large stocks that have not been surrendered. Confiscate the lot, and leave them with an ample supply of newspaper.

Is this a serious option, in view of the associated invasion of privacy? Given the kinds of restrictions on anti-social behavior that are going to be needed, I think it would be the right kind of signal to send. And, if we are scared about the potential misuse of this kind of data, this would prompt some proper restrictions once the emergency is over.

Like most of us, I’m not expert on epidemiology. But I have spent most of my life studying risk management. In the current crisis, one of the most relevant issue,s and the one that policymakers seem to be ignoring is that of option value. To see what’s involved, consider a policy choice like shutting down bars and cinemas, as opposed to waiting two weeks to see what happens. If, in two weeks time, it turns out the virus has been contained, the ban can be reversed and the loss is that of the two week shutdown,. On the other hand, if the virus spreads through contact in these venues, there is no way of limiting the damage to two weeks.

Nearly all the time, this reasoning favors aggressive early action. The exceptions are actions like cancelling events scheduled some months in the future. Deferring the decision would increase losses in the event of a cancellation, but keep open the option of going ahead if the situation improved.

Sadly, there seems to be no sign that those in charge of the policy response understand this. Rather, the reasoning seems to be to wait until they are sure a risk-reduction measure is necessary before implementing it. That is a recipe for avoidable disaster.

I didn’t get a lot of responses to this invitation back in 2008, but I’m hoping for more now. I can offer video presentations on a wide range of topics (climate change, water, infrastructure, digital economy & culture, employment and macro policy in general, among others).

As regards technology, it seems that Zoom is state of the art now. I’m hoping to have that set up so I can do it from home, which will allow more flexibility about time.

Repost from 2008

With the release of the Garnaut report, it’s time for me to look again at ways to reduce my carbon footprint. I’ve been trying to reduce air travel, turning down invitations and offering to do videoconferences instead. That’s had some success, but mostly people aren’t set up to handle video, and, by the time invitations are made, there are often arrangements in place that make it difficult.

So, I’m going to take the initiative, and announce that I’m available to offer video presentations on a wide range of topics (climate change, water, infrastructure, digital economy & culture, employment and macro policy in general, among others). It’s easiest for me in business hours (9-5 pm, Mon-Fri, AEST) as that’s when I can use the UQ facilities, but I’m willing to look at alternatives at other times, if there’s someone who can handle the setup.

Obviously, I can only do a finite number of presentations, either in person or by video, so get in with your request.

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The news of deaths from bird flu in Indonesia is pretty scary. Although, as I’ve mentioned recently Indonesia has made a lot of progress in many respects, the handling of this threat so far seems to show the worst of both worlds: all the ill ffects of authoritian habits combined with the timidity of weak politicians. There have been a lot of coverups, and an unwillingness to tackle the necessary but unpopular task of slaughtering affected flocks of birds. Things seem to be improving now, but there’s a long way to go.

It seems very likely that, sooner or later, bird flu will make the jump that permits human-human transmission, and quite likely that a major flu pandemic will result. The world, including Australia, is very poorly prepared for this. One thing we could do to prepare is to adopt a national program encouraging annual flu vaccinations for everyone, instead of just for limited categories of vulnerable people.

The main benefit of this is not that the shots would provide immunity against a new and deadlier flu variant (though there might be some limited benefit of this kind) but that we would have the infrastructure, production facilities and so on to undertake a mass vaccination against such a variant if it arose. As it is, it seems likely that many countries will be scrambling to get access to an inadequate world supply of vaccines, but if Australia and other developed countries ramped up normal levels of production, it would be much easier to generate extra supplies for our neighbours.

I haven’t looked into it, but my guess is that, even without considering the possibility of a pandemic, the benefit-cost ratio from such a measure would be pretty high. Flu is very costly in economic terms, and I suspect that, if pain and suffering were thrown into the balance, a program of universal free vaccination would come out looking pretty good.

Notes  I wrote this in 2005 thinking about new flu strains. The only difference I see with “novel” viruses is that the time taken to produce the initial batches of a vaccine is likely to be longer. As is usual with my policy advocacy, little if anything has been done along the lines I suggested.

If Labor plans to keep its promise of emission reductions by 2050, serious action must be taken as time is running out,

My latest piece for Independent Australia argues that if the 2050 target is taken seriously, Labor must have policies for 2030 similar to those taken to the 2019 election.

I’ll be speaking at the launch of the NTEU Climate Crisis campaign at Queensland College of Art Southbank tomorrow (Wednesday 12 Feb) .

I’ve generally taken a pretty dim view of focus groups, which seem to be used mostly to detect and amplify unthinking prejudices. But, I have to admit, that probably is due at least in part to the fact that my prejudices aren’t very close to those of the median focus group participant. So, it wasn’t until I saw focus group results matching my own thoughts that I paid any attention to the question of whether the results actually meant anything.

According to the SMH report, participants in two Ipsos focus groups almost uniformly saw Morrison’s response to the bushfires as “pathetic” and “lacking empathy”. In each case, eight of nine respondents gave such negative views. Ipsos also concluded there was “little confidence” Labor leader Anthony Albanese would have provided better leadership, with descriptions like “weak” and “bland” being offered. Regular readers won’t be surprised to learn that I agree with both judgements.

But how much can we learn from an exercise involving only eighteen participants? Surprisingly, the answer is, quite a lot. Use q to denote the proportion of the population who approve of Morrison

If the population from which the group was drawn was evenly divided between approvers and disapprovers, the chance of getting results like this would be tiny. This table (look at N=18, x = 16, p 0.5) gives it at 0.000584. A classical hypothesis test would reject the null hypothesis (or, in the usual jargon, find a statistically significant effect) for any chance below 0.05. Using a more sensible, Bayesian approach, with just about any prior distribution, the updated estimate of for the distribution of q would lie entirely below 0.25 (25 per cent approval). We could do something similar for Albanese, but the exact numbers aren’t given.

These numbers are substantially worse than the approval/disapproval numbers given by Newspoll. So what is going on?

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There have been Australia Days more loaded with fear and foreboding than yesterday’s (in 1942, for example), but not many. Richard Flanagan’s jeremiad in the New York Times might be overstated, but it’s a lot closer to the mark than our appalling Prime Minister’s suggestion that we should take the time to celebrate our greatness as a nation.

One of the more tenacious beliefs on the political right is that their support for nuclear power demonstrates superior rationality and openness to evidence. But the evidence is that, no matter what the structure of energy markets no one is willing to choose (new) nuclear power over any of the alternatives: gas, renewables and coal. That’s bad in the sense that the true costs of new and existing coal far exceed those of even new nuclear. But where those costs are factored in to decisions, it’s renewables (plus storage) that benefit.

Let’s look at the evidence. The World Nuclear Association currently lists “about 50” plants under construction, a number that’s been declining over time. A closer look reveals 47 plants, of which 23 are due to be completed this year or next (most are way behind schedule). The rest are due by 2026 reflecting the fact that hardly any have been started in recent years (a typical project takes 7-10 from initial construction to connection, if all goes well).

Adding in those modern (Gen III or III+) plants already in operation, the total contribution of modern nuclear to the world’s electricity generation capacity is likely to fall short of 100 GW, maybe equal to a couple of years of renewables (adjusted for differences in utilisation rates).

The only real hope is that of Small Modular Reactors, but even here the gap between claims and evidence is striking. Pro-nuclear advocates routinely write as if SMRs are an established solution, rather than a design that has so far not even reached the pilot plant stage.

If those on the political right would accept a market solution to decarbonizing electricity, including a carbon price and an option for SMRs, that would be a good deal for the environment. Sadly, there’s no sign of that happening. Rather, support for nuclear power is little more than an excuse for hippie-punching and intellectual self-congratulation.