tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post7842676211463959766..comments2024-03-19T05:54:16.651+00:00Comments on mainly macro: A divided nationMainly Macrohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09984575852247982901noreply@blogger.comBlogger29125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-1072379384207732102016-11-07T23:52:13.047+00:002016-11-07T23:52:13.047+00:00Just commenting quickly from BdL's repost.
&g...Just commenting quickly from BdL's repost.<br /><br />> Bringing together the dissatisfied of Tunbridge Wells and the downtrodden of Merseyside is a remarkable feat [for UKIP]<br /><br />It's all the more remarkable given that Tunbridge Wells, Wirral, Liverpool, and Sefton actually voted Remain. ;-)<br /><br />http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-36616028pawhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10513605616852217723noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-28113996992991728762016-09-01T23:09:32.935+00:002016-09-01T23:09:32.935+00:00Joseph Rowntree Foundation has a report based on B...Joseph Rowntree Foundation has a <a href="https://www.jrf.org.uk/brexit-vote-explained-poverty-low-skills-and-lack-opportunities" rel="nofollow">report</a> based on British Election Survey data.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07879135629606278094noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-41956886505688625842016-08-15T05:53:01.397+00:002016-08-15T05:53:01.397+00:00Not a single one of the explanatory variables in t...Not a single one of the explanatory variables in these studies is truly, or even close to, exogenous, so the results of the regression studies need to be taken with a truck load of salt. It's no wonder that low employment can *cause* a leave vote or a remain vote, depending on the study. It's also no wonder the meta-conclusion is that it could have been a bit of this and a bit of that.<br /><br />At the very least, instruments should be used in the most obvious cases.<br /><br />#badeconometricsAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-8656216835935539822016-08-13T23:18:11.289+00:002016-08-13T23:18:11.289+00:00Since both Leave and Remain voters despise capital...Since both Leave and Remain voters despise capitalism, we have found common ground. The solution therefore seems simple: eliminate capitalism.<br /><br />Whuffie economy? Robot paradise? Fabian socialist revolution with all billionaires up against the wall and shot, and a maximum wage enforced by the death penalty? Eliminate money and private property and set up a guaranteed minimum food/housing/clothing allotment instead? Pick your choice. Capitalism must go. Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10994509912655287453noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-6594732836976407122016-08-10T23:51:05.955+00:002016-08-10T23:51:05.955+00:00David Simpson you are exactly right. The logic of...David Simpson you are exactly right. The logic of comparative advantage goes against mainstream ethics. Comparative advantage is a utilitarian argument and utilitarianism breaks the golden rule of ethics. The remain camp asked voters to hurt economically marginalised UK nationals in order to achieve a greater good. Therefore there was no moral high ground to vote for and it was a choice between two socially unacceptable views. The remain campaign should have considered the ethics of its messages.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-4742260926068949612016-08-10T22:41:30.141+00:002016-08-10T22:41:30.141+00:00Damn those foreigners for going against our cultur...Damn those foreigners for going against our culture by working hard at jobs we shun and for their net positive contributions to our NHS and public coffers. You tell 'em, Enoch! <br /><br />I despair.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-25653090386418805612016-08-10T22:31:50.456+00:002016-08-10T22:31:50.456+00:00For what it's worth, I suspect this was true. ...For what it's worth, I suspect this was true. There was a surge in postal votes as the migrant crisis flared, and I have heard people talk about needing to leave the EU because of it. I still get people telling me the EU forced a wave of refugees to the UK when in reality we voluntarily took an embarrassingly meagre amount in.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-27299761854091341562016-08-09T17:24:08.949+00:002016-08-09T17:24:08.949+00:00Quite. I didn't vote as a "protest"....Quite. I didn't vote as a "protest". I voted Remain, in the end, only because my children wanted to Remain. I was, by the end, at best, agnostic, if not positively Brexit, because I heard nothing from the Remainers which deserved my vote. You (our blogger) may well be right - the economic pie will be smaller as a result - but how it is cut up is just as important. If Brexit leads to a less unequal sharing of the national cake, I will be very happy. And immigration, among other issues, feeds into that.David Simpsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03500785789370327838noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-1657098003465655262016-08-09T11:18:02.634+00:002016-08-09T11:18:02.634+00:006 years? I remember anti-EU headlines and stories ...6 years? I remember anti-EU headlines and stories going back to the 1980s. If you totalled up every EU related story covered by a British newspaper in the past 40 years, the decades of unrelenting lies would blow your head off.<br /><br />The problem is, the progressive centre have never made any attempt to dispel these myths. They always felt that the EU project was too big and obviously beneficial to need defending from xenophobic jingoism. Turns out they were wrong. If you tell people every day for 40 years about faceless interfering bureaucrats wasting our money, and no-one says anything to contradict it, eventually people just accept it as the truth. See "Seb" below, for a prime example.ABnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-59954542950276778542016-08-09T11:12:34.353+00:002016-08-09T11:12:34.353+00:00Indeed, the majority of the 52% genuinely thought ...Indeed, the majority of the 52% genuinely thought they were voting in the best interests of their country, because they had only been exposed to one side of the argument, because that was the only side the media covered. Even intelligent, rational people can make horrifically bad decisions when faced with a barrage of misinformation from supposedly trustworthy sources.ABnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-778149885239966202016-08-09T11:08:33.570+00:002016-08-09T11:08:33.570+00:00"You could go out to any city and speak to so..."You could go out to any city and speak to someone who voted Leave, they could tell you 20+ directly EU-related reasons for wanting to leave" <br /><br />Indeed, and they'd all be myths they'd read in the papers or on right wing blogposts/facebook memes that could be deconstructed with just 5 minutes explanation. Unfortunately, these people have neither the means of accessing that explanation nor the interest in actually listening to it.<br /><br />I'm sorry, but anyone who understands the first thing about the EU project understands that it isn't perfect, but it is without a shadow of a doubt a net good thing.ABnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-82981916713486840432016-08-09T10:51:23.740+00:002016-08-09T10:51:23.740+00:00This referendum offered the first opportunity in 1...This referendum offered the first opportunity in 19 years to say anything about immigration. in 1997 the level of immigration was around 50 thousand pa. When Labour took office and secretly opened the gates to unchecked immigration numbers rose instantly to 250-300 thousand. They have remained at these levels ever since,though changed from mostly east asian to east europaen. This represents the most obvious and visible aspect of globalisation and of EU control. The cultural and infrastructure pressures have pushed a very tolerant people to say enough!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-77629641388628978862016-08-09T10:27:02.227+00:002016-08-09T10:27:02.227+00:00Couldn't agree more. Every one of these refers...Couldn't agree more. Every one of these refers to people of lesser education being inclined to vote 'leave'. The condescension is appalling. The case against UK's continued membership is clear on so may fronts - and I would add I have been working on EU matters for many years. I know the policy-making, legislative and regulatory process backwards, so am tired of being lectured by people who think they know better than I what is good for me.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-40731456504410629562016-08-09T09:09:12.596+00:002016-08-09T09:09:12.596+00:00"If you import half the people from another a..."If you import half the people from another area, then you have to import the other half to look after the first half. The problem can only be solved by stealing more skilled staff from other nations."<br /><br />That's only true if you accept that the existing population is skilled to their maximum possible level, which is obviously not true. As a nation we under-invest in training and skills, and have done for years. We don't import nurses from abroad because there aren't people who are capable of becoming nurses in this country. We don't train enough.gastro georgenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-80769150581172650772016-08-09T09:01:35.961+00:002016-08-09T09:01:35.961+00:00Regarding the research about immigration and peopl...Regarding the research about immigration and people's propensity to vote Leave, does the research differentiate between EU and non-EU immigration? There seems to be anecdotal evidence that people in some areas voted to Leave because they had 'concerns' about immigration from Pakistan and that they thought that a vote to Leave would limit/stop this. Maslinmemohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08237948424601642413noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-82044183871098914042016-08-09T07:11:56.292+00:002016-08-09T07:11:56.292+00:00I just wanted to query your early argument that ag...I just wanted to query your early argument that age and qualifications explain any income effect. <br /><br />If I'm right the implicit argument made is that what the data is showing is that age and qualifications are correlated with income, with the suggestion being that age and quals explain away the impact of income. <br /><br />A reason to think the opposite: <br /><br />We tend to think of income as being determined by factors eg. qualification, experience, age and gender, but in this case at least if we are thinking about globalisation etc, then in some sense income is correlated with/determined by globalisation and freeing up labour markets in the sense that deindustrialisation/globalisation has reduced the wages of people without higher qualifications by reducing the manufacturing base etc. <br /><br />So it might very well be that people who were on below median incomes previously for instance would have been less dissatisfied then people on median incomes are now, given that due to rising income inequality, they are now further away from the median.<br /><br />In which case it might very well be that income has a predictive effect and that it is age & qualifications that are correlated with income: ie - older people with fewer qualifications are more likely to be 'left behind' and therefore have low incomes.<br /><br />My econometrics is and always was a bit rusty, but surely if income is not an independent variable (ie. it is correlated with itself in that one person's income is correlated with another), then that affects the analysis). More generally, my suggestion is that a) income is correlated with globalisation/deindustrialisation, which is itself a predictor of brexit vote b) in which case it is less clear that age and qualifications effects will cancel out income as a significant factor. <br />adamnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-75861020168910118722016-08-08T19:43:01.871+00:002016-08-08T19:43:01.871+00:00I prefer the analysis of Ha-Joon Chang. It makes i...I prefer the analysis of Ha-Joon Chang. It makes it very direct:<br /><br />“Wages in rich countries are determined more by immigration control than anything else, including any minimum wage legislation. How is the immigration maximum determined? Not by the ‘free’ labour market, which, if left alone, will end up replacing 80–90 per cent of native workers with cheaper, and often more productive, immigrants. Immigration is largely settled by politics. So, if you have any residual doubt about the massive role that the government plays in the economy’s free market, then pause to reflect that all our wages are, at root, politically determined.”<br /><br />Chang, Ha-Joon. 2011. 23 Things they Don’t Tell you about Capitalism, Thing 1: There is no such thing as a free market<br /><br />“… the living standards of the huge majority of people in rich countries critically depend on the existence of the most draconian control over their labour markets – immigration control. Despite this, immigration control is invisible to many and deliberately ignored by others, when they talk about the virtues of the free market.<br /><br />I have already argued (see Thing 1) that there really is no such thing as a free market, but the example of immigration control reveals the sheer extent of market regulation that we have in supposedly free-market economies but fail to see. While they complain about minimum wage legislation, regulations on working hours, and various ‘artificial’ entry barriers into the labour market imposed by trade unions, few economists even mention immigration control as one of those nasty regulations hampering the workings of the free labour market. Hardly any of them advocates the abolition of immigration control. But, if they are to be consistent, they should also advocate free immigration. The fact that few of them do once again proves my point in Thing 1 that the boundary of the market is politically determined and that free-market economists are as ‘political’ as those who want to regulate markets. …<br /><br />Countries have the right to decide how many immigrants they accept and in which parts of the labour market. All societies have limited capabilities to absorb immigrants, who often have very different cultural backgrounds, and it would be wrong to demand that a country goes over that limit. Too rapid an inflow of immigrants will not only lead to a sudden increase in competition for jobs but also stretch the physical and social infrastructures, such as housing and healthcare, and create tensions with the resident population. As important, if not as easily quantifiable, is the issue of national identity. It is a myth – a necessary myth, but a myth nonetheless – that nations have immutable national identities that cannot be, and should not be, changed. However, if there are too many immigrants coming in at the same time, the receiving society will have problems creating a new national identity, without which it may find it difficult to maintain social cohesion. This means that the speed and the scale of immigration need to be controlled.”<br /><br />Chang, Ha-Joon. 2011. 23 Things they Don’t Tell you about Capitalism, Thing 3: Most people in rich countries are paid more than they should beRandomhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04445772572707818311noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-59772652043796250702016-08-08T19:18:20.842+00:002016-08-08T19:18:20.842+00:00"Indeed “more than two thirds (69%) of leaver..."Indeed “more than two thirds (69%) of leavers, by contrast, thought the decision “might make us a bit better or worse off as a country, but there probably isn’t much in it either way””"<br /><br />Worth noting that the underlying message of certain (politically dominant) strands of economics is actually hard at work here. The state of the economy is like the weather, no decisions we make, nor actions of government can make it better or worse...Metatonehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00175633633918800979noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-20049362692436911212016-08-08T13:43:56.319+00:002016-08-08T13:43:56.319+00:00I think to really understand these issues you need...I think to really understand these issues you need to look at the causation, which as you allude to, these econometric studies cannot reveal. I think we should not jump to the conclusion that the rate of change does not matter that much. I would suspect this does matter if it is in a relatively low income area - which London isn't. And in such areas I would not be surprised if it makes a lot of difference. So it really might be rate of change in combination with relative income which is the vital determinant: singularly these factors don't matter, but combined their effect is great - it is not a simple aggregation of the two and you cannot separate the two.<br /><br />We need people on this with the skills to understand the causal mechanisms - sociologists, psychologists...<br /><br />NK.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-76044430008636597892016-08-08T12:31:18.055+00:002016-08-08T12:31:18.055+00:00The key determinant in the way people form opinion...The key determinant in the way people form opinions is the sources of information they are exposed to. <br /><br />By and large, remain voters get their information from social media, the internet, personal experience or the convincing arguments of well-informed friends. Hence they tended to be younger and better educated, because young well-educated people have access to a huge range of contacts and information.<br /><br />On the other hand, leave voters tend to get their information from the mainstream media, and the misinformation given to them by the mainstream media has been extremely consistent for several decades now: the EU is a very bad thing. So its no surprise that they voted it out. I know several leave voters who are utterly perplexed why anyone would vote to remain in something so obviously terrible and awful. By dint of their age and lack of contact with people who actually have first hand experience of the policies and impacts of the EU project, they only have the newspapers and the radio to go on: all of which were heavily biased towards the leave camp.<br /><br />The results of Brexit was really just a big poll to find out how people consume information. ABnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-68685713539716848962016-08-08T12:00:55.458+00:002016-08-08T12:00:55.458+00:00This article appears to do what most articles like...This article appears to do what most articles like it are doing: it tries to gloss over the minute possibility that people actually do know what the EU is, and where it's headed, and they do not want to be part of it. <br /><br />I understand full well how it all works and I consider myself even more educated than many of the 'intellectuals' (an arrogant way to refer to oneself) on the pros and cons of the European Union. <br /><br />You could go out to any city and speak to someone who voted Leave, they could tell you 20+ directly EU-related reasons for wanting to leave and you would STILL write about how it's not really because of the EU.Sebhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15347918043879372965noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-47670358694107082432016-08-08T11:55:46.193+00:002016-08-08T11:55:46.193+00:00"Kevin O’Rourke points out that the state can..."Kevin O’Rourke points out that the state can play an active role in compensating the losers from globalisation"<br /><br />It can't can it - other than stopping the immigration. <br /><br />This goes beyond slipping people the odd fiver and hoping that they will shut up and go away. Or this crazy belief that you can throw money at hospitals, education and construction and they will magically appear fully formed and fully staffed - even though there is a skills shortage in all those areas. <br /><br />If you import half the people from another area, then you have to import the other half to look after the first half. The problem can only be solved by stealing more skilled staff from other nations. Nations that have paid and trained those individuals to look after their own population. <br /><br />Any idiot can grow the economy by importing another country. But if you do that then it is hardly surprising that productivity and investment is low - or that there is a brain drain from the source country that leaves the remaining residents there in despair and destitution. <br /><br />Yet we know how this plays out, because it has played out already in the UK. London acts as a brain drain to the rest of the UK and there is insufficient transfers within the union to counteract that force. And that is within a fixed currency transfer area. The result is despair and desperation and a vote to change the way things work.<br /><br />People in the UK have had enough of the way things are operating and want to change it. They don't want the black hole of London slowly sucking in the entire population of the surrounding area to live in increasingly high rise tenements in an overcrowded country. Hence Brexit. <br /><br />Ha Joon Chang points out that globally wages are determined politically in each country by immigration controls and that nebulous thing called 'culture'. Mark Blyth has highlighted the impact of the elephant graph on western wage levels.<br /><br />People are more than just optimising consumption units and dealing with that is outside the expertise of mainstream economists. NeilWhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11565959939525324309noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-40515677801819600092016-08-08T11:17:08.042+00:002016-08-08T11:17:08.042+00:00Many thanks for this very interesting and useful o...Many thanks for this very interesting and useful overview - I think your insight about the relationship between structural economic change and basic values must be correct. This is exciting (at least for me) because further progress in this area will need contributions from labour economics, spatial economics, political sociology & social psychology. <br /><br />It's not greatly surprising that areas with weak demand for migrant labour and low wage growth were more heavily Leave; it would be interesting to think through any rational explanations for why this relationship might be mediated by anti-immigrant feeling, for example with regard to the O'Rourke point. Or, it could well largely be a lashing out.<br /><br />I uploaded some analysis of BES survey data on Leave vote preference about three weeks ago here: http://bit.ly/2aLe2m8 - work-in-progress but it also considers the 'economics vs values' question with reference to work by Jonathan Haidt, Philip Tetlock & so on.Siobhanhttps://medium.com/@SocSciMcAndrewnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-40005545454282894882016-08-08T10:58:48.920+00:002016-08-08T10:58:48.920+00:00If I could make a couple of points as I think this...If I could make a couple of points as I think this interesting analysis is incomplete to some extent.<br /><br />First, Vote Leave's 'taking back control' line did allow people to decide for themselves what issues they wanted dealt with in Westminster. A main one was, of course, was immigration. But the point is that, on principle, the belief that various decisions, be it that the VAT on tampons should be nil or we should kick out Abu Hamza's daughter in law, should be made in the UK was an valid reason to vote leave. You don't need to look behind it and ask why people wanted to take back control. As Ashcroft found, lots of people just did. They valued democracy and their ability to kick the bastards out.<br /><br />Second, the paucity of the pro-EU case meant that Leave didn't need to provide overwhelming reasons to vote their way. For instance, the constant drone of the Euro-crisis, the failure of Cameron's renegotiation, that the UK just doesn't share the federalist vision that drives the EU project, the fact we were already semi-detached, and the lack of any reason outside economic forecasts to stay undermined Remain. As an economist, I can see why you think that the economic forecasts should have been determinative. In fact, I think they worked well in that Remain almost won when that was pretty much the only thing in their armoury.<br /><br />Finally, I think your prejudicial use of the phrase 'protest vote' shows you may have missed a big point. The referendum was not a protest vote. People didn't vote to 'send a signal' because it was like a by election which didn't matter much. All the polls show people knew this was a high-stakes once in a generation decision, 'more important than a general election.' That is anything but a protest vote. Jameshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01594220073836613367noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2546602206734889307.post-46839202503806548932016-08-08T09:15:41.707+00:002016-08-08T09:15:41.707+00:00Yes, I think there's a lot in the globalisatio...Yes, I think there's a lot in the globalisation and social liberalisation (i.e. neoliberalism)argument. But I'd like to think we should focus a little more on discourse. Cameron and the right wing media have spent the last 6 years (and counting) hammering the EU. It was bound to take effect: Cameron was never going to be a convincing champion of a cause that he had very publicly attacked over the years. Paul Ewarthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00057355765883155749noreply@blogger.com