My post-Budget article for the Radix thinktank considers the future of the State Pension in the light of the Chancellor's changes to National Insurance. The headline news in the Budget was a 2p cut in the main rate of National Insurance contributions for employed and self-employed people. This was the second such cut, the first being in the Autumn statement. And the Chancellor expressed an intention to go much further. He trailed the idea of abolishing personal National Insurance...
Read More »Government is Not the Problem. Bad Government is the Problem
Having gone from trump to Biden. a person who I thought would never make a good president makes Steve’s argument on Bad Government being the problem when trump was the president. Asymptosis » Government is Not the Problem. Bad Government is the Problem, Steve Roth. And the solution to bad government is … good government. A lot of people — maybe even most Americans — think that making government smaller will make it better. But that...
Read More »Chatting With AI On Better Government
J.P. at J.P. McJefferson blog took up a rather interesting conversation with AI/ChatGPT. J.P. McJefferson: Chatting With AI On Better Government, jpmcjefferson.blogspot.com. ME What ideas do you have for improving U.S. governmental decision-making? ChatGPT Improving U.S. governmental decision-making is a multifaceted challenge that involves addressing various aspects of the political process. Here are some ideas that could contribute...
Read More »The foolishness of the old
Most people want government to spend more money on them than on anyone else. This applies regardless of their tax contributions (those who don’t pay tax often demand more than those who do). And it is completely understandable. After all, charity begins (and when times are hard, ends) at home. So when voters in the US were asked what the government’s spending priorities should be, it comes as no surprise to discover that their preferences varied by age: As we would expect, the...
Read More »IPA’s weekly links
Guest post by Jeff Mosenkis of Innovations for Poverty Action. At IPA even our water spills our normally distributed (or Halloween-themed, depending on your perspective)David McKenzie has updated an amazing list of all of the Development Impact Blog’s methodology posts, categorized by topic.A reminder for the academic interview fly-out season that I’ve seen a few people mention: don’t assume grad students can afford to put travel on their credit cards and wait to be reimbursed; offer to book...
Read More »Will the US Government Shut Again? What to Watch
By Marc Chandler Originally posted at Marc to Market The short-term solution reached last month to extend the US federal government’s funding expires on Thursday, February 8. Leaders from both parties say they want to avoid another partial closure. Last month, parts of the federal government were closed for three days, which is about par for the course (around half of the government’s 19 shutdowns since 1977 lasted three days). The House of Representatives is planning to vote tomorrow on a...
Read More »IPA’s weekly links
IPA has an opening for a Country Director for our Sierra Leone and Liberia offices (above photo comes from the former). A lot of interesting projects are happening there and our offices there have historically worked very well with the governments. I’ll let Rachel Glennerster describe it: But the best reason is the amazing staff, here’s Jishnu Das talking about the Liberia office’s recent high profile RCT of public-private partnership schools there: Finding children who have left a school...
Read More »IPA’s weekly links
IPA has an opening for a Country Director for our Sierra Leone and Liberia offices (above photo comes from the former). A lot of interesting projects are happening there and our offices there have historically worked very well with the governments. I’ll let Rachel Glennerster describe it: But the best reason is the amazing staff, here’s Jishnu Das talking about the Liberia office’s recent high profile RCT of public-private partnership schools there: Finding children who have left a...
Read More »IPA’s weekly links
IPA has an opening for a Country Director for our Sierra Leone and Liberia offices (above photo comes from the former). A lot of interesting projects are happening there and our offices there have historically worked very well with the governments. I’ll let Rachel Glennerster describe it: But the best reason is the amazing staff, here’s Jishnu Das talking about the Liberia office’s recent high profile RCT of public-private partnership schools there: Finding children who have left a school...
Read More »IPA’s weekly links
Guest post by Jeff Mosenkis of Innovations for Poverty Action. This week’s Freakonomics episode, titled “Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Money (But Were Afraid to Ask)” (Apple podcasts) features an all-star cast of Jack Bogle on not trying to beat the market, Annamaria Lusardi on teaching basic financial tips to NFL players, and Harold Pollack on his index card of financial heuristics. Readers of this blog are all financial whizzes but, you know, for your friends and stuff....
Read More »