2014 03
Scott Sumner has a nice comparison of Robert Shiller’s investment advice with that from one of my favourite supply-side economists, Alan Reynolds. Loyal readers of this blog will not be surprised to see that Scott’s post has my name all over it.
Scott asks, ‘Can people find me the dates where Shiller recommended people buy stocks?’
Sure. In his 2009 book with George Ackerlof, Shiller wrote: ‘there has been one way, at least in the past, in which almost everyone could become at least moderately rich … Invest it for the long term in the stock market, where the rate of return after adjustment for inflation has been 7% per year’ (p. 117).
Unfortunately, Shiller’s ex-post observations on stock market returns in 2009 do not sit well with his ex-ante prediction in 1996: ‘long run investors should stay out of the market for the next decade.’
posted on 25 March 2014 by skirchner in Economics, Financial Markets
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I have an op-ed in the SMH on foreign direct investment in the Australian housing market noting that foreigners are being used as scapegoats for what are really domestic policy failures. The House Economics Committee will now inquire into the issue:
According to committee chair Kelly O’Dwyer, the inquiry will consider whether the current restrictions on foreign investment in residential real estate serve to increase supply, as is their stated intention, or raise prices.
This is rather like asking whether foreign tourists increase the production of goods and services or raise consumer prices. The answer depends on how flexibly Australian producers can accommodate changes in foreign as well as local demand through increased output.
It is pointless blaming foreigners for inflexible elements on the supply-side of the Australian economy. For that, we should blame local politicians.
Ironically, the inquiry could result in a bringing forward of foreign demand in anticipation of increased controls on FDI in residential real estate. The inquiry should recommend the abolition of the existing controls on FDI in real estate. My guess is the Committee will instead recommend extra conditions be attached to FIRB approvals, along with some additional quantitative controls.
I am also quoted in this story in today’s AFR on anti-dumping measures on imported tomatoes.
posted on 20 March 2014 by skirchner in Economics, Foreign Investment, Free Trade & Protectionism
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