Monthly Archives: March 2005

Getting the Water Thing Right

Posted on March 23, 2005 by andrewleigh

As long-time blog readers will know, I’ve had a bee in my bonnet about water restrictions for some time. A short opinion piece in today’s SMH expands on some of the arguments I made in a blog entry here last … Continue reading →

Posted in Australian issues | 6 Comments

Forecasting Elections

Posted on March 22, 2005 by andrewleigh

Justin Wolfers and I have just finished a paper on the 2004 Australian election, looking at how well the betting markets, pollsters and economic models forecast the result – and in particular whether they picked that Howard would increase his … Continue reading →

Posted in Australian issues | 1 Comment

All politics is local

Posted on March 17, 2005 by andrewleigh

Andrew Norton has a nice posting on the micro-management of Australian universities. Here’s another story I heard recently. An unnamed university in Canberra just discovered that a faculty member would be unable to teach a second semester course, so decided … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Exunt

Posted on March 17, 2005 by andrewleigh

A colleague doing some research on the 2004 election just came across this article.

Posted in Australian issues | 1 Comment

Wanted: Sailor to fix dodgy ship

Posted on March 15, 2005 by andrewleigh

The latest Navy recruiting ads on television are delightfully authentic. The pitch: imagine you’re a naval officer, a helicopter wants to land on your boat, and the engines have just gone wonky. What would you do? Only in Australia would … Continue reading →

Posted in Australian issues | 2 Comments

100 Public Intellectuals

Posted on March 14, 2005 by andrewleigh

The SMH’s list of 100 public intellectuals came out on Saturday. I was one of the 100 random people asked to vote. The people who I chose are those whose views aren’t predictable, and who I enjoy reading. There are … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

How much is that vote in the window?

Posted on March 10, 2005 by andrewleigh

$28,000, if the Coalition’s Roads to Recovery program is anything to go by. In a piece in today’s AFR, I look at the relationship between Roads to Recovery spending over the last election cycle, and the swing towards the Coalition … Continue reading →

Posted in Australian issues | 6 Comments

US Teacher Quality

Posted on March 9, 2005 by andrewleigh

There’s a piece in yesterday’s Christian Science Monitor which is quite an engaging writeup of an Education Next article that Caroline Hoxby and I wrote on the decline of teacher quality in the US. There’s been very little done on … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

The Workers Untie

Posted on March 7, 2005 by andrewleigh

I have an Economics Briefing piece in today’s AFR on why unions have declined. After a week of immersing myself in the literature, I ended up pointing the finger at four factors: changes to the laws governing unions, more product … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 5 Comments

Appearances Matter

Posted on March 5, 2005 by andrewleigh

Call me a Saville Row Janet Albrechtsen, but would it be too much to ask ABC journos like Matt Brown to put on a tie when interviewing the Iraqi PM? At a time when the broadcaster is under fire for … Continue reading →

Posted in Iraq | Comments Off on Appearances Matter

Like the old car….

Posted on March 3, 2005 by andrewleigh

I can’t let the day end without noting Keating’s comments on the economy: "the economy is like the old car — you’ve got to keep servicing the motor. If governments …never give the car a service, we’ll end up with … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Death to the Penalty

Posted on March 3, 2005 by andrewleigh

During four years of living in the US, I mostly felt like I was on familiar ground. But very occasionally I would be reminded that I was in a country that was not my own. The one biggie was the … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Polls Apart

Posted on March 3, 2005 by andrewleigh

Justin Wolfers and I are presently writing a paper on, inter alia, the forecast errors of various pollsters in predicting the two-party preferred vote share. Alas, two of the major pollsters don’t publish most of their old two-party preferred results. … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 5 Comments

And the Winner Is….

Posted on March 1, 2005 by andrewleigh

There’s been some pixels spilt lately on the efficiency of betting markets in predicting various things. So it seemed perhaps timely to point out that the markets performed pretty darn well in predicting the Oscars, with the bookies’ favourites winning … Continue reading →

Posted in Film | Comments Off on And the Winner Is….