Are Fair Pay Agreements dead yet?

This post has been sitting in drafts for a while. Time to brain dump everything 2021 so that I can comfortably let my brain turn to mush over Christmas. But remember this post next year when this issue becomes big again.

A couple of weeks ago (or a lifetime ago in politics, depending on what speed your news clock runs at) BusinessNZ made the announcement that it will be pulling out of its role in the Fair Pay Agreements (FPA) system.

To refresh your memories, FPAs are the government's next step in its plan to bring about full communism by next election. 

Just kidding.

Essentially, FPAs are supposed to enable employer representatives and unions within a sector to bargain for minimum terms and conditions that will apply to all employees in that industry or occupation. In the Cabinet paper to establish approval to draft the legislation, BusinessNZ were identified as the 'default' employer representative: the representative that would come to the bargaining table if no other industry representative were willing to.

Back in July I wrote about how BusinessNZ's role in the process was a bit of an eyebrow raiser. Considering it had already publicly denounced the FPA system, it seemed deeply weird that it would take a pivotal role in enabling the system. As several commentators have pointed out, including this excellent Herald editorial, the only real surprise about Business NZ's withdrawal is that it took so long.

So what does all this mean for FPAs?

Welp, here's the Minister in charge replying to a press gallery journalist regarding BusinessNZ's move:

So... no need to worry. This almost sounds like a good thing for FPAs! First Union certainly seem super casual about BusinessNZ's announcement.

Here's the thing though: for collective bargaining to work, industry representatives do need to come to the table. Is that a realistic expectation? Federated Farmers were one of the first cabs off the rank to announce that they support BusinessNZ and will also refuse to be a negotiating partner.

It's easy to imagine a world where other industry reps follow that lead. Bargaining for something so fundamental puts a heck of a lot of pressure and reputational risk on the industry representative. Many industry reps have not traditionally played a collective bargaining role. And of those who do, it still requires institutional knowledge and experience to be able to bargain at scale, carrying responsibility for negotiating wages for an entire sector or industry. 

Are there any industry/employer representatives who are ready and willing to step up? Are there any other industry representatives who have strictly ruled the role out? That'd be useful public knowledge before an FPA bill is released for public submissions.

And then there's the option of going to determination: basically, if there's no industry representative to come to the table, the wages and conditions for an entire occupation and sector will be determined by a panel of Employment Relations Authority members.

Now, I don't want to get into semantics and the meaning of words (I'm still not over private taxi companies being counted as public transport by the way), but having the Employment Relations Authority set wages and conditions is not collective bargaining. There is no bargaining! Does this matter for FPAs? Well, you'd think so. Here's the objective of the system, as set out in the Cabinet paper:

Let's assume for a moment --and it's not a crazy assumption-- that a lot of FPAs end up being sent to determination because no industry representative was willing or able to come to the table. How would the Employment Relations Authority go about setting wages and conditions?

It's actually not straightforward at all figuring out what the objective of a sector/occupation-wide minimum wage should be, let alone how that translates into something binding for all employers. In fact, it's hard enough figuring out what the objective of the standard minimum wage is. In David Maré and Dean Hyslop's Minimum Wages in New Zealand: Policy and practice in the 21st century, the authors argue

A key challenge for evaluating the effectiveness of minimum wage policies is the lack of a clear statement of what minimum wages aim to achieve. Minimum wage policies can potentially contribute to several key policy objectives. They do not, however, operate in isolation, and their impacts depend on their interactions with other policy settings in areas such as industrial relations, tax and benefit policies, employment and training policies, and business support, making evaluation even more challenging.

The living wage has its problems too, in that it is a clunky calculation based on assumptions about household size, the status of other household workers, hours worked, consumption bundles (what people spend their money on), and national average rents. 

Coming up with a sector or occupation-wide minimum wage that is at all meaningful requires being really clear about what problem needs to be fixed, and having the economic tools available to assess whether that problem explains relatively low wages in that industry/occupation. That's no small task for the best economists in the country, let alone a panel of Employment Relations Authority members.

FPAs aren't dead yet.

But it's looking increasingly possible that the system will look nothing like the system that was originally envisaged: a collective bargaining system.

Hold that thought for next year, and pray we won't all be too distracted with Covid to notice the legislation coming through.

Vaccine certificate rules chuck taxi drivers under the bus

I really feel for taxi drivers right now.

While many businesses are having to shut up shop because they do not want to turn away unvaccinated* customers, taxis have the opposite problem: they're not allowed to turn away the unvaccinated. 

This week the Taxi Federation called on the government to remove the prohibition on taxi drivers (which includes rideshare drivers) being able to require vaccine passes and turn away unvaccinated passengers. RNZ reports:

Covid-19 Response Minister Chris Hipkins said taxis were considered public transport and therefore did not require My Vaccine Pass.

"The government has been careful to balance the need to keep people safe from Covid-19 while ensuring everyone can access food, medicine and transport."

My initial reaction? This seems nuts. 

After a bit of thinking, I still think this is nuts. But it also gets to some gritty issues around what constitutes a life preserving service, the regulation of private businesses, and trading off different people's rights against each other. 

What constitutes a life preserving service?

Oh no. I fear debating this is about as straightforward as MBIE trying to define what counts as an essential service. Here's how taxis seem to fall into the criteria:

The linked briefing is the most fitting official document I've managed to find on the topic (if I got this wrong, I'm only willing to take half the blame: finding any kind of information on the traffic light system seems to lead to endless clickholes).

Now, I don't think anyone except the meanest anti-anti-vaxxers would argue with the intention of the policy. But the way the policy is applied is going to capture a lot of non life-preserving travel. Taxi drivers aren't just prohibited from turning down an unvaccinated passenger who needs to get to the supermarket or doctor. They're prohibited from turning them down fullstop.

And I'm not a transport expert, but it hurts my brain trying to think of how private businesses can be counted as public transport. I thought I knew what public transport meant: services provided by or contracted by central or local government. When I think public transport, I think buses, ferries and trains. Is Uber now public transport? When did this happen? My entire understanding of private enterprise is ruined.

Definitions aside, I'm also not psyched about just having a blanket prohibition on rejecting unvaccinated passengers. I get why policy wonks like it: it's administratively simple and easy to communicate (because the traffic light system is so easy to follow so far), and easy to enforce. But tidy policy isn't necessarily good for taxi drivers when it exposes them to more risky events than necessary.

Taking away choice about risk tolerances

There might very well be taxi drivers who are willing to take on the risk of unvaccinated passengers. But there are clearly also drivers who are worried, and who are uncomfortable taking on that risk. Not to mention drivers who are old thus vulnerable, or who live with people who can't get vaccinated themselves.

And for the sake of argument, I see the situation of taxi drivers as fundamentally different to the risks taken on by doctors, nurses, or police: they never signed up to protect and save lives. Nor are they comparable to supermarkets where physical distancing is a lot easier to enforce. They're not even comparable to bus drivers who are contracted to perform a public service.

In normal times, there are only limited circumstances under which taxi drivers can turn down a passenger (and now that I think about it, I'm not sure I'm 100% cool with that regulation either, but one battle at a time). But importantly, one of those reasons is if they believe their personal safety is compromised.

Surely the risk of catching Covid is an example of personal safety being compromised? And if not, remind me again why the unvaccinated have fewer rights occupying other businesses under the traffic light system?

Vaccine mandates are a mucky business, but equally mucky is banning the right of private businesses and individuals to take on extra precautions in order to feel safe. 

I think the word "feel" here is significant: perceptions of safety have an element of subjectivity. Even if a new study comes out tomorrow saying vaccinated people are just as risky unvaccinated people (vaccine sceptics, don't come at me with said study. I'm aware of the claims, and I'm aware of the critique of the claims), I'd still back the right of individuals to take their own precautions in an extremely uncertain environment.

On the one hand, the government is stopping people from taking on risks that they might be willing to take on. But on the other hand, it is also forcing people to take on risks that they are unwilling to. I mean, force is a strong word. I take that back. Taxi drivers can always just go out of business and become unemployed.

Trading off different people's rights

At the heart of most important Covid responses is the trading off of human rights. I for one am willing to give up a little bit of freedom in the short run if it means a safer, more freedom-filled life in the long run.

Minister Hipkins said that "the government has been careful to balance the need to keep people safe from Covid-19 while ensuring everyone can access food, medicine and transport."

In the case of taxi drivers, the decision seems pretty stark: a taxi driver's right to health is less important than the unvaccinated's right to life preserving services.

As the Taxi Federation puts it:

"We are being forced to provide a service to those that consciously refuse to protect themselves and others, willingly threatening the safety and wellbeing of our communities."

In an ideal world, you wouldn't need to make a trade-off: both sets of rights are important and both sets of rights ought to be advanced. It's stating the obvious to point out that this isn't an ideal world.

Is there a better way?

Full disclosure: I do not work in Covid policy, do not want to work in Covid policy and I don't envy those who have to work on these types of problems every single day. This stuff is hard. But there seem to be at least a few options on the table:

• Narrow the scope. Don't force taxi drivers to drive the unvaccinated to their mates' houses (I was about to say the pub, but they can't go there anyway) or wherever they go for fun these days (the park?). But do ensure they accept trips to actual life preserving services like the doctor or supermarket. 
• Don't count private businesses as public transport. That's an option. And if there are areas that aren't well serviced by public transport, I don't see why private businesses should bear the cost (if they choose not to). My first best option is to allow private businesses to choose whether to require a certificate. Call me a free market radical, but I'd be surprised if taxi drivers who are keen to just make a living wouldn't service those areas once the gap in the market has been identified.
• KiwiRide. I didn't say this was a good option. But rather than sticking an arbitrary public transport label on private businesses, why not at least start formally contracting them to provide what is apparently an important public service.

Maybe my options suck. But at the very least, I think this issue highlights the flipside of vaccine mandates. The government is exercising enormous powers to minimise Covid risks. But those powers can also prohibit individuals from exercising their own ability to take precautions to minimise risks in the same way.

*A note on wording: I'm using the term unvaccinated to refer to those who choose to be unvaccinated. In my mental model, people with vaccine exemptions should be treated equally to the vaccinated.

Human Rights Commission is hiring an economist

So, the Human Rights Commission (HRC) is advertising to hire a senior economist [edit: was advertising! I started writing this up yesterday but the ad has been pulled from its website today]. First reaction: I think that's great! I was genuinely excited and intrigued when I saw this advertisement pop up.

Let me explain. You see, I haven't heard much from the HRC lately. Which is a bit surprising. This is a pretty important time for having a national conversation on legitimate limitations on human rights: vaccine certificates, vaccine mandates for certain industries and occupations, lockdowns, and curtailing anti-lockdown protests. 

For what it's worth, I have been broadly comfortable with where NZ has landed on a lot of these matters (although the handling of Auckland is getting messier by the day and I don't envy the decisionmakers). That's more based on gut feelings about the benefits outweighing the costs. But human rights is more HRC's domain than mine, do they have a position on this? 

More importantly, does HRC really want to cede public commentary about the human rights implications of vaccine mandates to the likes of Damien Grant? I wouldn't think so. And yet, here we are. 

I see that there's some advice on the HRC website that looks pretty good, but it doesn't cover the latest traffic light settings which call for vaccinations in a lot more situations than the ‘high risk' occupations currently described (MIQ and border workers, healthcare, disability support and education settings). The website's guidance says

This approach to balancing rights will of course depend on the particular issue and context. For example, the Human Rights Act applies differently to public decision-makers compared to private entities, such as businesses. What is ultimately important is that human rights guide decision-making, whether by government decision-makers or businesses. The Human Rights Commission encourages businesses, service providers and employers to seek legal advice to ensure their Covid-19 policies do not breach the rights of others.

Which is...very safe advice. But it'd be useful to know what human rights are at stake, instances where human rights might need to be balanced against each other, and possible grounds for limiting rights. We've got some court judgments coming through that test these waters, but given this is all pretty new I think it's worth making the public aware of the universe of possible interpretations. 

And more recently, HRC expressed concern that the Government’s new traffic light system does not give priority to ensuring high vaccination rates among Māori before easing restrictions. I've got no strong allergic reactions to advocating for high vax rates, especially for a vulnerable group. Ensuring that everyone who wants to get vaccinated is able to, or that people receive the right information and guidance to make an informed decision about getting vaccinated, seems like the right way to go to protect the right to health. 

But, given it is surely part of their analytical framework, it was disappointing the HRC weren't explicit about what other human rights they've balanced their concerns against.

Besides this recent media appearance, the HRC seem to be avoiding the elephant in the room: there's another niggly bit about the traffic light system that people are worried about. It's the idea that vaccination will be compulsory for some activities. Actually, a wide range of activities. Whether you agree this is good or bad thing, you have to agree that this is big. 

I thought maybe that's why HRC are looking to hire an economist. Big issues like this involve striking a fair balance between multiple interests -- all protected by different bits of human rights law. Limiting the exercise of some human rights can be acceptable if the response is proportionate. Who better than an economist to look into the proportionality of responses? Economic frameworks are useful in analysing the trade-offs between multiple interests. I really thought this is where they were going with the advertisement.

Economists have done some good work in  this area. If you haven't caught it already (it would be rude of me to presume that you do not regularly read the latest working papers coming out of the National Bureau of Economics), there's a great piece looking at the extent individual preferences for protecting  rights and civil liberties are elastic to health insecurity. In other words, how individual preferences for protecting human rights and liberties might change (or on the flipside, be resistant to change) when there is a health threat like Covid. There's a lot of potential for NZ work to be done in the area: what are the specific trade-offs people make? What are the differences in elasticities between different demographic groups? What are the contingent factors that can tip the scales? If you're as excited about this paper as I am, you might be interested in their finding:

Turning to differences across sociodemographic groups within countries, we find that individuals disadvantaged by education, income, or race (in the United States) are less willing to sacrifice rights than more advantaged individuals. The smaller elasticity of Black Americans with respect to health insecurity may be surprising given the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on communities of color, but is consistent with a longstanding struggle for equal rights and few substitute means for accessing political power (e.g., lobbying or donations) outside of exercising traditional democratic freedoms. 

This suggests that the ability to sacrifice rights in times of crisis may be better characterized as a “luxury good” than a sacred value. 

A deeper understanding of how people are valuing certain human rights (and why) seems like useful information for HRC to have up their sleeve. 

And let's be honest, HRC probably could have done with an economist before Covid times too. Remember in 2019 when they called for free early childhood education for all, fair pay agreement contracts for all, and raising the minimum wage to a living wage? I believe the Act Party called for the HRC to be abolished after that paper (OK, you caught me, I'm only linking to this article because the editors picked a hilarious picture of David Seymour to accompany the piece). All of these arguments would be a lot more compelling if HRC could assure the public that they'd run the numbers and were convinced that the benefits outweighed the costs, and done some thinking about who bears the costs and benefits and whether that's justified.

But anyway, I'm getting ahead of myself. I've read the job description and I'm not fully convinced that this is the work the HRC economist will be engaging in. The ad has disappeared between yesterday and today, maybe because the position has been filled. But here's a screenshot. 

I suspect the pool of economists who have "demonstrable experience in advising on the implications of Te Tiriti and colonisation on economic wellbeing" is pretty small. 

Whoever fills the advertised position, I hope they can bring the concept of proportionality into HRC's regular analysis. I don't want to sound clichéd, but these are unprecedented times, and the HRC has a potentially important role in advocating for how to balance competing human rights and duties.

Oh, and to avoid any doubt: no, I did not use this post as the cover letter for my application.

This is what happens when you tell women they're bad at math

Boy have I found a sexy economics paper to share with you all.

And by sexy I mean interesting, provocative, useful and upsetting. With a splash of Bayesian statistics. (why, what do you mean by sexy?). 

As is typical in economics, the authors have tried to hide its sex appeal with the title: A (Dynamic) Investigation of Stereotypes, Belief-Updating, and Behavior, by Katherine B. Coffman, Paola Ugalde Araya & Basit Zafar. But do not be fooled! 

What's the paper about?

This paper looks at how men and women update their beliefs and choices based on feedback on their verbal skills and maths. It addresses the gender gap in beliefs about skills, gender gaps in appetites for competition based on those skills, and the gender differences in how men and women change their beliefs and choices when they get feedback on their skills.

What's the big finding?

Here's the clanger because I don't believe in saving the conclusion until last: when women receive bad feedback, especially in math, they update their beliefs and choices more negatively than men do. They are also more likely to remember negative feedback in the future and let it guide their decisions.

As a grown woman with a complicated relationship with math, this hit hard. Math and I carry a lot of baggage. 

But let's go back a bit...how is the paper different from what we know already?

Here's the stuff that's already been established in previous literature:

• There's a gender gap in labour market outcomes, even amongst the highly skilled (and yeah, there's a whole pool of literature in what explains that gender gap which I won't get into).
• Women are less likely to major in high-earning STEM or business fields.
• Women are significantly less likely to opt into competitive tournaments than men, and growing evidence suggests men tend to be more over-confident than women on average.
• Providing feedback about performance can reduce gender gaps in competitive tournament entry in laboratory settings. But lab settings have tended to be one-off situations.
• When participants take an IQ test and receive feedback on their performance, one month later, beliefs are more responsive to positive than negative feedback, and positive feedback is more likely to be accurately recalled. 

What makes this study different from similar literature on gender gaps in beliefs and competitive choices:

• The authors investigate how the effects of feedback dissipate over time, and how the fade-out (if any) may depend on the stereotype of the domain (verbal abilities as a typically female domain and math as a typically male domain) and gender. 

So what did the study actually do?

I think I'm going to have to quote at length here, because I don't think my rewording can do this experiment justice. Here's a simple (I mean...simple is a relative concept here) explanation of what they study is trying to do:

Our experiment is inspired by many educational settings, where students take introductory courses in different domains, receive noisy feedback, and then decide what to specialize or compete in. We use a stylized, controlled environment to mimic important features of this setting, producing several advantages. 

First, we observe individual measures of ability in both domains. Second, we observe exogenous changes in the individual’s information set (which are quite hard to isolate in non-experimental settings), allowing us to cleanly study belief updating. Third, we have precise measures of beliefs. And, finally, we have well-defined measures of payoffs for the chosen domain as well as for the counterfactual domain - this offers us an advantage since counterfactual payoffs are, by definition, not observed in the field. 

Our design allows us to collect detailed information about beliefs, choices, and recall at different points in time in both a female and a male-typed domain. This allows us to ask whether there are differences across men and women and/or differences across the associated stereotype of the task. Thus, we present results in terms of two gender gaps: the male − female gap (average differences between men and women) and the gender-congruence gap (average differences between individuals in the gender-congruent domain and individuals in the gender-incongruent domain). Both gaps are potentially important for understanding gender disparities in educational and career settings of interest.

And in plain English? 

The experiment took place in two sessions, one week apart.

In the first session, participants (university age) take two assessment quizzes: one in math and one in verbal skills. Next, participants report their beliefs about their absolute (do they think they did well?) and relative performance (do they think they did well relative to their peers?) in each domain. The experimenters next inform participants that they will take a second round of quizzes one week later. 

Participants are then given a series of choices about how they would like to be compensated for their future performance in round 2. This is meant to measure choices around appetite for competition and pay-for-performance:

• First, they choose between being paid for math performance under a piece-rate scheme or for verbal performance under a piece-rate scheme ($1 per correct answer). This indicates their preferred domain.
• Next, the experimenters elicit participants' willingness-to-accept competition in each domain using price lists. Participants make a series of choices between receiving either $1 per correct answer in verbal (math) or entering a competitive pay scheme in math (verbal). The competitive option pays $X per correct answer in math (verbal) if they place in top the 40% of performers in the Round 2 math (verbal) quiz, but 0 otherwise. For each domain, we vary X from $1.5 to $4 across the rows. This indicates their willingness to compete with their peers.

Some participants then receive feedback about their relative performance (i.e. their performance relative to their peers). The peer reference group is randomly computer-generated, so the participant learns whether they performed better or worse than a random peer. Randomness is key here because the participant has no idea about average performance: they don't know if they got lucky or unlucky with the computer-drawn peer. So the information is useful, but noisy.

For half of the sample of participants who received feedback, the experimenters ask participants to update their beliefs about performance and choices (see above) again immediately after the receipt of this feedback. 

The other half of the sample that receives feedback leaves the first session without providing updated beliefs or choices. 

All participants return for the second session one week later. In the second session, participants share their beliefs and choices again, including those that did not receive feedback in the first session.

All participants then take the two Round 2 quizzes. Participants are also asked to recall the feedback they received in each domain at the end of the second session

What were the results?

Apart from the headline finding, here are some other interesting results:

• Men and women respond similarly to positive feedback if the have the same starting point, and they update their beliefs and choices similarly in response to positive feedback.
• The impact of bad news fades less over time than the impact of good news, particularly for women (relative to men) and for individuals who receive bad news in incongruent domains--women who receive bad news about their math skills, men who are bad at verbal skills-- (compared with congruent domains).
• Women's beliefs about their performance are more pessimistic than men's, and women are less willing to compete.
• Immediately after feedback, gender gaps are somewhat reduced, particularly for beliefs. However, in the week following feedback, gaps grow back toward their starting point. In particular, gender gaps in choices one week later are indistinguishable from gender gaps at baseline.
• The results are not driven by simply forgetting the feedback: 88% of feedback is accurately recalled one week later.

So to round it all up:

If we take a man and a woman with the same performance and the same initial beliefs, then provide the same bad news, the woman holds more pessimistic beliefs about herself one week later compared to the man. Similarly, even if we hold fixed performance and initial choices, women (compared to men) are less willing to compete one week after bad news. 

Now what?

As the authors allude to, these findings have implications for understanding how men and women might choose their fields of study, and subsequently, the gender ratios in certain domains and overall differences in labour market outcomes. 

I mean, this is just one study. It doesn't tell us the state of the universe. You'd need more studies looking into the same thing to know if we're really onto something here. 

But at the very least, I think this study helps us think about the multiple points where gender gaps can take place, emphasises the need to investigate how prior beliefs develop in the first place, and urges better thinking on how to cushion the long-lasting effects of negative feedback. 

I took a break, and now I'm back

So... I took a break from this blog. I didn't mean to. But leading up to lockdown, life got busy. And then during lockdown my brain got a little fuzzy and it's taken a while to get back into good habits. But I started this blog for a reason and it feels too early to give up on something without giving it my all. 

So this piece is me, trying to get things back on track. 

I'll start with a roundup of all the things I've been contemplating, reading and watching over the last two months (damn, how are we near the end of September??).

Stuff I read

Well, I read less than I have been for most of the year as my long term relationship with the library was put on hold and also, the aforementioned lockdown fuzzy brain. But the few books I did read were awesome and appropriate for my mood.

How to not die alone: The Surprising Science That Will Help You Find Love, Logan Ury

A somewhat bleak choice during lockdown. But I really enjoyed this book, and would happily recommend it to any single ladies out there because surely I'm not the only one on the planet in need of a little guidance.

How to not die alone is a very practical guide to dating and relationships, drawing on behavioural economics. Given I'm normally sceptical of both dating advice and behavioural economics, it's a miracle I'm such a fan (slight digression but...I think a lot of the instincts around behavioural economics are basically right and the approach is laudable but my gripe is that some people really stretch the conclusions and put way too much weight on theories that are sometimes based on shonky psych studies).

I loved the economics sprinkled throughout the book, and even though I remain sceptical of some of the studies (I cringed when the famously debunked 'paradox of choice' jam jar study was mentioned), I was willing to buy into many of the concepts. 

I also realised I've been an idiot by failing to conceive of the dating universe as just one big matching market. And as a Kiwi Indian over a certain age, my market's already thinner than others. And there are a bunch of other economic concepts that fell out of that: signaling, network effects, search costs, optimal stopping theory. I wish I'd done this analysis sooner. It seems so obvious now: the lowest cost, highest reward option for me right now is dating. 

Please look forward to my forthcoming paper on the economics of the dating market for Kiwi Indian women. I'm going to have to put in a lot more research.

Masala lab: The science of Indian cooking, Krish Ashok

This book was good! It's all about the science behind Indian cooking and why we cook things a certain way and in a certain order (and when it's OK to break the rules). It's almost disturbing how much I learned from this book. Why am I only now learning about how to layer flavours? Or that powdered spices are pretty much just aromatic sand (OK, I probably did know this one but have been too lazy prep my own masala and a part of me still wishes I didn't know the truth). It's a good book for younger generations who didn't grow up learning to cook the traditional way and absorbing all the basic instincts. It's also a good book if you're like me and feel that understanding the science behind something makes it even more wonderful (my appreciation of wine, for example, increased tenfold once I read about the science and geography behind it).

I think I'm going to have a lot of fun using the lessons from this book. One thing I took away from it is to treat your cooking like a science experiment: change one or two variables at a time to see how the final result fits with your preferences. I like this because it takes away the crushing disappointment of cooking a less-than-amazing dahl or curry because it's all just part of the experimentation process. Plus, experimenting helps with troubleshooting exactly when in the process the recipe went awry.

Year of yes, Shonda Rhimes

I picked this book up from the library after lockdown because I felt like I needed a bit of motivation. And I'm still thinking about it which makes it a good book and if it's a good book then I should make sure other people hear about it too. The premise of the book sounds a little corny: Shonda Rhimes, a highly successful and publicly acclaimed woman, commits to saying 'yes' to everything for entire year. Thankfully, the book's so much more than that. First, Shonda Rhimes is a beautiful and compelling (and funny!) writer so even if the content was bad it would've been a good read. Grey's Anatomy fans will love the Christina Yang references too. And this is the perfect book for introverts. Her descriptions of her once debilitating fear of public speaking vibed just a little too well. The main takeaway for me was just understanding a bit more around the default preferences of introverts and the importance of challenging those defaults sometimes.

Things I've been watching

I'm ashamed of how much Netflix I've managed to get through. And worse, how easily my brain slipped back into binge watching after years of training myself out of the habit. But it's done now, and I did discover some gems. This is a very abridged list.

Om Shanti Om

I wrote a whole roundup of excellent Indian films and didn't include Om Shanti Om. I've avoided this epitome of Bollywood for a long time because I assumed it would be too campy for my tastes. I won't lie. It's pretty campy. But also so, so good with a decent storyline to boot. Maybe chalk it up to lockdown, but I went into this film feeling pretty drained. But part-way through the film I found myself grinning. Actually grinning (yes, for those who have seen the film, it was during That Song). And I experienced this new and weird sensation which I think was pure joy? If you're new to Bollywood I recommend watching this after watching some of the big titles, as I think this is a film that rewards people who know their Bollywood. And if you're like me and have watched a bit of Bollywood but somehow skipped over this one, I implore you to correct this immediately.

Love is Blind

I got deeply invested in the relationships in this reality TV series and quickly developed reckons. The concept is about blind dates where couples "fall in love" without seeing each other, but the real juice comes with tracking their relationships when they can see each other and interact in the real world. Good escapism and incredibly binge-worthy.

The Bold Type

The series follows three millennial women working in the journalism industry. As a millennial woman myself, this hit all the right feels: career wins and struggles, having great mentors, the absolute beauty of female friendships, wokeism and not wokeism, and the highs and lows and grey areas of dating. 

Daughters of Destiny

Thank you, Netflix for giving me a little perspective. This is a documentary series about the Shanti Bhavan school in India which educates children from the 'untouchable' caste. I would have been perfectly satisfied with a documentary that talks about the importance of education for upward mobility in India, and the importance for girls in particular. But the documentary goes deeper in following the journeys of a set of girls through their education and home lives, and learning to straddle two very different worlds. That is, two very different worlds in India: the educated class and those who haven't had that opportunity. There was more than one 'oof' moment for me watching this series, and you find yourself rooting for those who are able to escape their circumstances while despairing for those left behind. As I said, this is a good watch for those needing a bit of perspective: this is why we fight for freedom and individual dignity.

The Mindy Project

This series needs no introduction or description, right? There are many episodes and I watched them all. 

Plans for the blog moving forward

No plans, as such. Except a conscious refocusing towards stuff that interests me or that I care about. If that happens to be policy or politics-related stuff then I know that it'll vibe with certain readers. But if what gets me back into the habit of writing happens to be roundups of my favourite Mindy Project episodes, then I guess we will all just have to deal with it. 

Emily Oster changed the way I think about economics

Perhaps in stark contrast to my last blog post, in this post I want to celebrate the good economics can do.

I have Eric Crampton to thank for introducing me to the wonderful work of Emily Oster. Oster's most famous book, Expecting Better: Why the Conventional Pregnancy Wisdom Is Wrong -- and What You Really Need to Know was a surprisingly engrossing read considering I have never been pregnant, have not been trying to get pregnant, and probably won't be getting pregnant anytime soon unless I end up birthing the next baby Jesus or something.

What I got out of Oster's book was a new appreciation of the economics. I learnt about the value economists can add in simply reading and evaluating the damn studies, and making sense of the data and evidence. You wouldn't think this is such a big deal. But as it turns out, in an area like pregnancy advice, it's clear that a lot of the time this just wasn't being done. And there are very real consequences. 'Conventional wisdom' based on bad studies or ignorance of better studies is everywhere when you start looking. 

Another value-add of Oster's work is that it is all about empowering individuals to think about risk and make decisions for themselves based on their risk preferences. This isn't just applicable to decisions related to pregnancy, although pregnancy turns out to be a really good example as the stakes are a lot higher and people may be a lot more risk averse than they would be otherwise. It's enabling individuals to make decisions related to their health and wellbeing, based on the best possible evidence, and knowledge of the stuff they still don't know (known unknowns). A little bit of data/evidence literacy can be a great thing!

Finally, because of my academic and career background, I tend to see economics and policy as inter-related. Obviously, this is a narrow view. There's a lot of economics that doesn't even touch on policy (and a whole lot of policy that willfully ignores economics!). But a lot of the most interesting and useful economics has to do with personal decision making: from finding a partner, to how to raise your children, to optimising your health and wellbeing, to deciding where to eat and where to live. In the absence of government telling you what to do at every stage of your life (I'm being optimistic about the future here), it helps to have analytical tools available. And economics is a very useful part of that toolkit.

Anyway, why am I talking about Emily Oster right now? Because Vox have published an excellent article on her and her career. Oster has been extremely prominent in the US media lately for her work on Covid-19 and reopening schools. As with almost any Covid-related topic, and Covid in the US in particular, the views have been considered controversial. Unsurprisingly, I recommend reading the whole thing. But here are some of the quotes I found most interesting:

“We’re facing basically this existential threat to schooling for all these kids, and public health,” she [Oster] remembers thinking, “and the best data that the CDC can marshal on this has been put together by a professor in her basement.” 

The story of how Oster has emerged as a singular authority on schools, despite her lack of a background in education policy or pandemic response, starts with an information vacuum.

This is why Oster reaches hero-status in my mind. It's easy to see an information gap and complain. Or wait for the government to get its act together. But whether you agree with her commentary and conclusions or not, the fact that individuals like her can see a massive information gap and work to fill it without access to the best resources available is worth celebrating. 

Oster says she doesn’t mind being criticized on the merits of her work, but she bristles at the notion that it’s not her place to talk about Covid-19 and schools.

 

“I find this credentialism frustrating because I think that it is an argument that people use to not bring multiple voices to a debate,” she says. “It’s absolutely true that there are a set of tools that come with epidemiology that I don’t have,” she adds. But she says she believes she has another set of tools — “thinking about risks and analyzing data and looking at evidence” — that are useful in their own right.

I think this sucks, and these attitudes prevail in NZ too. Sure, there were/are economists in NZ with bad takes on the pandemic. But that's not a reason to dismiss the analytical framework they can bring to the table. In an ideal world, epidemiology and economics would work together. But there seem to be people hell-bent on making this a war of the professions.

Oster’s trajectory over the last year is emblematic of the way a failure of federal leadership often left Americans rudderless, with seemingly nowhere to turn for guidance on life-or-death decisions. And now, as schools and the economy reopen and many are reevaluating their relationships to authority, data, and advice, Oster may be most relevant not for the times she’s tried to tell policymakers what to do, but for the times when she’s empowered people to make choices for themselves.

In the face of incompetent governments, people need the information that will help them make the best choices for themselves and their families. I'm grateful we didn't face the same problem here in NZ, but it's a lesson worth filing nonetheless: sometimes you cannot wait for the government to tell you what the right thing to do is.

Indeed, Oster is a cautious speaker — choosing her words meticulously, rarely showing emotion, unfailingly gracious to her critics.

This is who I want to be when I grow up. Too bad nearly all of these qualities are considered flaws generally, and more so when you're a woman.

Though she continued her academic work, she was increasingly seen publicly as a parenting expert (“She’s on the cover of Parenting Today; she’s not on the cover of The Economist,” Johnson notes).

Ah yes, because real economists are the crystal ball gazers and the ones who make complicated and fancy models that fail the real-world test. I'm not one to cry sexism for the hell of it. I'll let you make up your mind on that. 

Uh oh... are people only now learning economic forecasts are often wrong?

Is there a German word for the pleasure you experience when someone calls out economists who are consistently wrong? Because that's what I'm feeling. RNZ's piece on the problem with economists' forecasts reveals an issue that is not all that new, but people must have short memories. It's an issue that is dear to my heart. It's time to start calling economists out on their bad forecasts.

Full disclosure: I'm currently slowly making my way through Nate Silver's The Signal and the Noise: Why so many predictions fail -- but some don't. It's all about how to deal with uncertainty in forecasting. I'm enjoying it.

The problem with economists' forecasts is that they're often wrong. Embarrassingly wrong. 

The article gives economists a bit of a ribbing, and fair enough. But the fault doesn't wholly lie with economists -- they are after all dealing with multiple variables and layers of uncertainty attached to each. And economists presumably provide these forecasts because they're something the public and policymakers want to know. Forecasts are useful because policy responses can be slow: you really want to get your underground bunker built before the hurricane hits. Economic forecasts fill a necessary gap.

I could almost live with that, if the forecasts were delivered with appropriate humility and caveats. But often they're not -- or at least, the soundbites that make it to print do not reflect that. It's the over-confidence that bugs me. And while some of this may come down to naivety about the way media works, it's a little hard to swallow when many of these economists are seasoned media commentators.

There are also incentives at play. Economists are rewarded by the media for their grandiose predictions: they're the ones who get headlines, airtime and name recognition. By the time future events eventuate, the public memory of the exact forecast is long gone, all that remains is the memory that 'this economist said something smart on TV this one time'. The media too have an incentive to publish clear and confident forecasts: they make good soundbites. 

The RNZ article suggests the media include more caveats and disclaimers when broadcasting economists giving their forecasts. That would help. But we can go further.

Here are 3 things that I think would help incentivise better reporting of forecasts:

1) Have a public database of economists' past forecasts compared with the actual outcome. We already see a bit of this with political polling. Keeping a track record of economists' past claims has to be a good start to incentivising better commentary. Those with low confidence in their forecasts might be more reluctant to comment to media if they know they'll be held accountable. And it incentivises those who do talk to media to take more care with their claims. It's also a useful tool for the public to compare different takes and understand how forecasts stack up to reality.

2) Improve the supply-side of the equation. This is cribbed from the aforementioned Nate Silver book, who in turn references George Mason University economist Robin Hanson. Robin Hanson's recommendation is to use prediction markets, where the public can place bets on economic or policy outcomes. Hanson's insight is that there are simply very few incentives to produce good forecasts. By adding a real financial stake to forecasting, the incentives increase and shift away from just looking good to peers (e.g. being on TV and making headlines). An advantage of prediction markets is that they're dynamic: they can provide real-time information by being constantly updated when new information comes to light. Anyway, all of this sounds good and reasonable. But then I remember we don't have iPredict anymore in NZ so...there goes that idea.

3) Improve the demand-side of the equation: publish the margins of error, or confidence intervals, in forecasts. This is also cribbed from the Nate Silver book. The idea is to encourage the media and public to be better consumers of forecasts. Again, the public are already familiar with this format with political polling (whether they understand margins of error, I cannot comment). Good economists know and will admit that their forecasts carry a range of uncertainty. Being able to communicate that uncertainty is not only useful for the public, but is also fairer on the economists who should know and want to highlight the uncertainty of their forecasts.

Not all economists who make forecasts are bad, and not all forecasts are bad. What we need are better mechanisms for discerning which ones to take more seriously.

Fun things in the FPA briefings

A slew of Fair Pay Agreement (FPA)-related briefings were released last week, available at MBIE's document library. If you want to understand the complexity of the system, I recommend taking a look. There's a hell of a lot of good analysis in there.

The most important document released, the Regulatory Impact Statement (RIS), has already been covered in the media so I'm not going to rehash what has already been said. The gist, as Stuff reports, is that 'officials recommended scrapping Labour's Fair Pay Agreement plan and strengthening existing law' and the RIS highlights the significant risks and challenges with the system. Most importantly (and most damning) the RIS warns that the costs of the FPA system may outweigh the benefits. Turns out that free and frank advice isn't dead after all. You love to see it.

The briefings that were released had some fascinating bits too. The two pieces of advice that I found most interesting are: 

1) MBIE recommended a more targeted application of FPAs and pointed out the risks of not doing so; and 

2) if Business NZ hadn't agreed to be the default bargaining representative for employers then the next best option entailed significant risks to the FPA system.

MBIE recommended a more targeted application of FPAs

Remember when FPAs were sold to us as helping the poorest and most vulnerable workers in the labour market: the cleaners, security guards and supermarket workers? Unfortunately, the proposed initiation tests in the Cabinet paper for FPAs do not guarantee that these workers will be prioritised.

The threshold for what sectors/occupations get to initiate bargaining for an FPA are decided by initiation tests. Under the proposed system, the initiation test involves satisfying one of the following tests: 

1. A representation test, that would require at least 10% of the covered workforce or 1,000 employees in coverage to support initiation (whichever is lower), or 

2. A public interest test, that would require evidencing that an industry or occupation faces certain labour market issues, such that an FPA would be in the public interest. 

These thresholds seem extremely low: requiring only limited support from workers even when there is no evidence of labour market issues, and not requiring a mandate from workers if labour market issues are identified. 

But, it turns out that things didn't have to be this way. MBIE recommended having a narrower scope for FPAs and provided advice on the risks associated with the approach ultimately taken in the Cabinet paper. The previous Minister (partially) agreed to this. Here's MBIE's advice:

The briefing goes on to explain the risks of the Cabinet paper's approach of having a rather low and untargeted initiation test. First, it would make it more difficult to ensure priority for workers in sectors where there is a ‘race to the bottom’. This is pretty important if the point of the system is meant to be aimed at vulnerable and low paid workers. In fact, MBIE points out that it is the most coordinated, unionised sectors (say, in the public sector) are better placed to initiate an FPA, and could crowd out less resourced and organised sectors who are more in need. 

The lower initiation tests will also substantially increase the fiscal costs of the system. This is important given the RIS has already warned that there is a possibility that the FPA system may not produce net benefits. 

Finally, the untargeted approach makes it harder to justify the fact FPAs negatively affect human rights and international obligations. This is a biggie. The RIS covers this issues too:

Under MBIE's preferred approach, if FPAs were only able to be initiated in sectors where both tests were met, then maybe there'd be some justification for affecting human rights and international obligations. At least under MBIE's approach there'd be a stronger mandate from workers. I'm keen to see what advice comes out in the public submissions process on this point. 

What would happen if Business NZ refused to be the default employer representative?

This is a fun thing to consider: what if employers simply refused to participate in FPA bargaining? It's not really a crazy possibility, given how many employers have said they do not support the system. That's why securing BusinessNZ's agreement to be the default bargaining representative for employers if no one else steps up is so important (and yes, at the time of writing they have agreed). But I have wondered what would have happened if BusinessNZ had refused to participate in the FPA system. 

MBIE's briefing sheds some light on this. Here's the advice (excuse my bad snip and paste):

Just to reiterate although I think the advice is pretty clear: if BusinessNZ had refused to participate, the next best option has significant has significant risks, including the possibility of being legally challenged and departing from the core concept that FPAs are bargained.

The 'next best' option also comes down to how great an incentive it is to have a bargained outcome rather than a determined one. Remember, collective bargaining can be a messy and costly process. And there is still a risk of going to determination anyway if parties cannot agree. In fact, the RIS points out that:

"Although the outcome is difficult to predict we anticipate in many cases the system is likely to result in bargaining stalemates and determinations fixing terms by the Employment Relations Authority, so the added benefit of bargaining may be limited." 

So... going straight to determination may actually save both bargaining parties a lot of time and resources if they're likely to end up in a stalemate and determination further down the line. If this becomes an expectation, then there doesn't seem to be much incentive to participate in bargaining. 

Anyway, all of this is interesting because BusinessNZ have called for FPAs to be scrapped. So while the 'next best' option is currently moot, I'm filing it away in my memory palace just in case. 

To conclude, I must end with an apology: I am sorry if you got to the end of this and discovered there was nothing fun about the FPA briefings at all. For future reference, I'm the kind of person who gets a thrill out of organising my sock drawer. But even if you find FPAs hopelessly boring and complex (they are definitely the latter), the implications for freedom and the way we negotiate employment agreements in New Zealand are massive. And all this, without requiring any evidence of a real labour market problem. Boy am I looking forward to reading the submissions on this thing.

What the LTFS does and doesn't tell us about NZ Super

I'm going to take a position that's guaranteed to sideline almost everyone: we need to tweak NZ Super (NZS), but not because the long-term fiscal position statement (LTFS) tells us so.

That was the conclusion of a report I wrote a lifetime ago: Embracing a Super model: The superannuation sky is not falling. I can't bring myself to read and repeat the whole report again, but it's worth a squiz if NZS is your thing (and my God, there are a lot of people who get jazzed about Super). The main argument in that report was that the future fiscal costs of NZS are not a cause for concern in and of itself, but there are distributional impacts to consider that support the case for change.

First, let's look at what the LTFS does tell us (based on projection based on historical trends): 

• Net debt rises from 34% of GDP to 177.3% in 2061.
• Debt financing costs rise from 0.6% of GDP to 7.6% in 2061
• And Crown net worth decreases from 11.7% of GDP to -117.6% in 2061

So, fiscally we're not likely to be in a happy position if no big policy changes are made. Regardless of your views on what level of debt is acceptable, carrying high levels of debt can harm economic growth, and can leave the country vulnerable if unexpected disasters (say, an earthquake or pandemic) hit and require even more borrowing and expenditure.

The LTFS also projects future fiscal costs based on demographic change:

• The cost of healthcare rises from 6.9% of GDP to 10.5% in 2061.
• The cost of NZS rises from 5% of GDP to 7.6% in 2061.

Are these numbers big? Are they bad? These are judgements the LTFS can't make. But I'll be honest: the rise in the cost of NZS doesn't spook me.

Here's a graph from the Embracing a Super Model report which is obviously a little old now, but shows how the costs of our pension compare to the OECD average in 2050.

I find it interesting that headlines following the LTFS focus so heavily on NZS but hardly worry at all about the rising cost of healthcare. The logic cannot be that our pension costs are out of step with most other countries, nor that NZS is particularly amenable to policy change: it's the political hot potato. I'm not implying that I know of good ways to reduce health spending while achieving good health outcomes, but it's surely something to consider even if the conclusion ends up being "nope, there's zero wriggle room or opportunities to do things better".

And as for those high debt levels in the LTFS....yes they're scary, but one has to wonder whether they are actually even feasible. It assumes that spending continues to exceed revenue over a large period of time, which is a shift away from the Public Finance Act. Here's what the Office of the Auditor General had to say about the 2016 LTFS:

There are two main reasons why, from 2016 onwards, the Government's long-term financial position is projected to become unsustainable over the long term:

• government spending continues to exceed government revenue because, as a share of GDP, tax revenue is held constant and healthcare and superannuation costs increase; and
• finance costs increase significantly because all resulting operating deficits are funded by debt.

In our view, it is difficult to imagine these assumptions would hold over a 40-year horizon because both move away from many of the principles of responsible fiscal management set out in the [Public Finance] Act. The duration of these assumptions reduces the reasonableness of the outlook and potentially the confidence that users have in the 2016 Statement's main messages – particularly when we look at how government finances have moved in the past.

Yet, in spite of all of this, I still think there are tweaks to NZS that can be made. First, because where inefficient spending can be identified, changes should be made. While the universal eligibility of NZS is definitely a strength, there are ways of better-targeting it while preserving universalism. And second, because in spite of the fact that I think there's a lot to like about the NZS model, there are still tweaks that could be made to ensure the costs are better distributed: as it stands, public spending on NZS could increasingly become a tool for regressive redistribution, transferring funds to the relatively well-off. The opportunity cost must be considered where other groups face greater hardship and/or need.

We shouldn't change NZS because of what might happen in the future. We should tweak it because the model already has a regressive element and it's only likely to get worse when there is a higher ratio of superannuitants to working age people.

These are the recommendations in the Embracing a Super Model report with some further additions in italic brackets because I'm not confident the report was clear enough about this:

• Recommendation 1: Link the pension age to health expectancy (while acknowledging that there are huge variations in health expectancy both between population groups and within population groups. This will require better support from the welfare system for those people who have not reached pension age but cannot work. I think there's more work to be done about compensating the losers of this approach, but that's not a reason to avoid action IF there are net benefits).
• Recommendation 2: Index NZS to CPI only rather than both CPI and wages (again, while ensuring that those on lower incomes are not worse off under this new arrangement, with support via the welfare system).
• Recommendation 3: Contributions to NZ Super Fund should not be at the expense of paying down debt (yep, I don't have much to add to this except that it is infuriating that this isn't happening, not even in response to Covid). 
• Recommendation 4: Productivity growth will make NZS – and everything else – more affordable (this is a cute recommendation. I mean, it's right and important, but no one should be deceived into thinking this is a straightforward task).

Rightly or wrongly, the LTFS has sparked the semi-regular debate on what to do about NZS. Refusing to touch the system in order to provide certainty to those approaching the pension age isn't really an excuse: starting the conversation early means you can ensure a smooth transition rather than a sharp shock if the need arises in the future.

And, if governments (plural, because neither major party has made much progress when in government) really really do not want to even look at NZS, then we at least need to have a conversation on what does need to give. It is not likely that NZ will reach the very scary debt levels in the LTFS projections because something will need to give. It would be great to know there is a plan for what that something might be, and that this is something governments are proactively thinking about, rather than reacting to when the time comes to take action.

*One thing I would change in the Embracing a Super Model report is the denial that there is a looming fiscal crisis or that NZ is sitting on a fiscal timebomb. Overall, it kind of looks like we are if nothing changes. But the point I was trying to make is that NZS itself is not yet looking like a timebomb.

Top 10 foods that have brought me comfort and joy in Wellington

I am not a foodie. This is not a list of the best eats in Wellington. I want to make that clear because I believe food preferences are deeply personal. They are shaped by our cultures, our childhoods, our social interactions, our moods, our bodies and our palates. It's why I get so rarked up when governments or experts try and regulate what we should and shouldn't eat.

This is a list of food experiences I have had in Wellington that gave my soul exactly what it needed in the moment.

In no particular order...

1) Kera-la-carte: thali (plate)

Thalis are the best way to eat Indian food: you get a little taste of everything, and it is the way Indian food is supposed to be eaten. Here's what in their meat version: travancore fried chicken, butter chicken, lamb mappas, rasam, kallappam, pappadom, raita, pickle, rice, gulab jamun. All of this in one meal for one person! It makes me happy just remembering how happy I was eating this meal. There are other things on the menu that also look good, but if you're new to Kerala cuisine this is where to start.

2) Taste of Home: hand-pulled noodles in chicken broth 

I ate these noodles recently, just before the shortest day of the year. It was dark, blowing a mean southerly and raining outside. But I was lucky enough to get a seat inside Taste of Home (they have extremely limited seating but eating in is highly recommended for the full aesthetic experience) and I immediately felt like I was onto something special. The noodles are what this place is famous for (and for good reason!) and the broth warmed me to the bone. By the time I'd finished my bowl I felt so at peace I hardly noticed the weather walking home.

3) Curry Pot: masala dosai

I cannot believe there are people who claim they love food but have never tried a masala dosai before. It looks like a giant crispy crepe stuffed with curried potatoes but tastes even better than a crepe. Plus, there are chutneys. I feel Curry Pot in Newtown is extremely underrated. Everything I've eaten there has been great but unfortunately I haven't sampled as much of their menu as I want to because I just cannot go past the dosai. If you are trying this for the first time please invite me so I can watch you eating it. Or maybe don't, as I won't be able to hide my disappointment if you don't love it.

4) Scopa: hot chocolate

Liquid happiness. Like consuming a cup of endorphins.

5) Mekong cafe: pho

Pho is what I eat when I want something flavoursome but know that any food that is too rich or heavy is likely to make me awful. Like when I feel a cold coming on. It is the perfect inoffensive food: delicious and substantial enough to make you feel satisfied, without making you want to curl up and nap afterwards. As a consistently solo diner, I also like the vibe at Mekong cafe: full of other solo diners or families who just want a decent meal. 

6) Mother of Coffee: beef and lamb combo

Food just tastes better when you eat with your hands. As an Indian, I especially like eating with my hands as a small rebellion against fork colonisation. And scooping up the earthy flavours of various dishes with the spongey and sour injera is the ultimate comfort. Ethiopian food has a unique spice profile that makes it distinct from other cuisines. I am extremely grateful this food is available in Wellington.

7) El Matador: steak

I have only ordered steak a handful of my times in my life. I didn't grow up eating beef, and as an adult I've never been impressed with this food others seem to swear by. But after watching a bunch of Parks and Rec and a desire to tap into my inner Ron Swanson, I decided to give steak another go. It turns out, I'd been eating steak completely wrong. El Matador is where you go for good steak. Enjoy with glass of red and bask in the smells from the wood-fire. A perfect winter treat.

8) Little Manila: Filipino flatbread

I found this gem at the Queensgate mall foodcourt but there are apparently branches at the Capital Markets and the North City mall. Now, I didn't go to the mall for an excellent dining experience. I was looking for something cheap and easy so that I could get on with my shopping mission. But on a whim I decided to give Filipino food a go as I was curious. Reader, I was not disappointed. The flatbread was like a Malaysian roti and the fillings were a perfect balance of textures and flavours. The food absolutely hit the spot but even better, I was positively glowing with smugness that I had discovered such an affordable hidden treasure.

9) 1154 Pastaria: trottole alla zozzona 

Short (coil) pasta. Soft egg yolk sauce, Italian sausage, cured pork, chilli, pecorino. What is soft egg yolk sauce? It is what heaven tastes like. An unfussy, completely satisfying dish. The wines at 1154 are also good, so you know what to do.

10) Arobake: pastries, sourdough, sausage rolls

I'm not cool enough or green enough to live in Aro Valley. But I do live within walking distance, and Arobake is the only reason I need to get out of a bed on a Saturday morning. Any weekend that begins with pastries to accompany my morning coffee is going to be a good weekend. The folk at Arobake seem like good people, and their sourdough only confirms my belief that this is one art I'm happy to leave in their expert hands rather than trying to master. And, not that you need any other reason, it's also convenient to the Garage Project so stop by there too if you're planning a really good weekend.

Food for thought: books and shows about food and culture

These days, if you ask me what I'm thinking about at any given time, it's normally food. I like eating food. I like reading about food. I like looking at pictures of food. And I love watching people eat food that makes them happy. Forget corny romance movies or over-rehearsed sex scenes. My favourite kind of voyeurism involves those intimate moments of people expressing the unadulterated pleasure of eating something that brings them comfort and joy.

I will also do a writeup on the best food experiences I've had in Wellington. But for this piece, I want to do a roundup of some of the books and Netflix shows that have influenced my thinking about food. And in the process, taught me new things about international trade and culture and history and economics and mindfulness and nutrition and food production processes and marketing and the diversity of personal experience.

Trigger warning: some of these books and tv shows will make you want to travel and will make you feel sad when you remember you can't just book a flight and start fantasising about your next trip. 

1) I'll start with this Atlantic piece by economist Tyler Cowen on the Six Rules for Dining Out (I was not lying when I said this blog would pretty much be a Tyler Cowen fangirl site). Cowen confirms what I had already suspected: there are very few aspects of life that economic reasoning cannot enhance. The approach maximises two things I care about: discovering excellent food and feeling like I'm getting value for money. Here's the opening excerpt: 

A bad or mediocre meal is more than just an unpleasant taste, it is an unnecessary negation of one of life’s pleasures—a wasted chance to refine our palates, learn about the world, and share a rewarding experience. Virtually every locale offers some good meals at a good price. But too often, amidst the clutter of our days, we don’t find them—at least not consistently.

I would only add one caveat which is that sometimes I spend too much effort thinking about what would be the optimal food experience for me at any given time. That gets stressful. Don't be like me and overthink it. If you like the general approach in the Atlantic piece, Cowen's book An Economist Goes to Lunch is also full of gems.

2) Netflix's Ugly Delicious with David Chang is an aesthetic delight, and manages to cover some decent social ground. It's part of the food travel genre, and gives some good insights into the history and culture behind food traditions. My must-see episodes include the Fried Chicken episode for its discussion of African American history; the Kids Menu episode for explaining how our early food experiences shape us (and for any econ nerds out there, Emily Oster makes a celebrity appearance); and the Don't Call it Curry episode for covering the absolute scandal that Indian food is not recognised by the West for its sophistication and skill  (yeah, I'm not at all biased).

3) Also on Netflix is High on the Hog: How African American Cuisine Transformed America. I did not expect to get emotional watching this, but damn, this series moved me. I almost don't want to ruin it by writing about it because my words can't do it justice. I learnt a lot, I thought a lot, and it is a great example of the rich and complex histories that accompany the foods we take for granted every day.

4) Curry: A Tale of Cooks and Conquerors by Lizzie Collingham is, as the name suggests, a book about 'curry' (which, in case you didn't know, is a word with a colonial history of its own). Among other things, this is a story about international trade. Not just the movement of spices and other exotic ingredients, but the movement of traditions and people across India and across continents. I've read mixed reviews of Collingham's account of history, but food was an excellent pathway to pique my interest in the different accounts of the impacts of colonisation on India. 

5) Staying with the Indian theme, Monsoon Diary: A Memoir with Recipes by Shoba Narayan is as homely and comforting as the foods it describes. Where the aforementioned curry book talks about the big historical movements, Monsoon Diary is all about the personal. I particularly like how much food is treated as an occasion, and how it can shape our memories and identities.

6) Cooked by Michael Pollan can be consumed as either a book or on Netflix, and both are great. This book enhanced my understanding of nutrition, biology, food mass production practices, and (my favourite) anthropology. Here's the sales pitch:

Relying upon corporations to process our food means we consume large quantities of fat, sugar, and salt; disrupt an essential link to the natural world; and weaken our relationships with family and friends. In fact, Cooked argues, taking back control of cooking may be the single most important step anyone can take to help make the American food system healthier and more sustainable. Reclaiming cooking as an act of enjoyment and self-reliance, learning to perform the magic of these everyday transformations, opens the door to a more nourishing life.

It's no secret that I'm not interested in living a long and healthy life just for the sake of it. I would rather live a happy life. But I am absolutely sold on the pitch that eating food that works well for your body is the way to go, and that there are some foods out there that taste good but make your body feel horrible. I'm also totally sold on the idea that creating something with your own hands, and tapping into your creativity, sensory experiences and intuition is a fulfilling endeavour. 

7) I read Shark's Fin and Sichuan Pepper: A Sweet-Sour Memoir of Eating in China by Fuchsia Dunlop recently and I'm still letting it sink in. There's a lot in there and if I'd paid more attention to the title, I wouldn't have been so surprised by the sweet-sour tone. The book filled me with hope and excitement that there is good food and good people in this world that I will have to go on an adventure to discover. I learned about dishes that I can't even imagine as they are so different from my own flavour vocabulary.  

But then the other shoe dropped. The book was a reminder about the fraught politics of China. The book was published in 2009 and includes travels to Xinjiang and interactions with the Uyghur community, where tensions and discrimination were already obvious. In 2021, it makes me very sad knowing what we know now about what is going on there. Most importantly, the book acknowledges that the China of the 90s is not the same as the China of 2000s, and thanks to rapid economic growth, it is different again in 2021. The book reflects on environmental impacts, animal welfare and food waste in a time of great inequality. It raises the question: what does it mean to travel and eat with a good conscience? As I said, there's a lot there. The book is excellent. It is both delicious and sad.

8) Finally, I'll end with this Spinoff essay by Sharon Lam on What it means to miss Hong Kong which hits a similar note to the above. Here's an except:

There is still good food and there are still cool, intimidating fishmongers in Hong Kong, and perhaps there always will be. But how long can people go about enjoying everyday rituals as their rights continue to diminish, and with them their identity?... The truth is, you don’t need to leave Hong Kong to miss it. The people of Hong Kong in Hong Kong already do.

Hong Kong has fantastic food and when I visited I was treated with much generosity and kindness. I would love to go back but that was becoming a distant possibility even before the pandemic. 

We should absolutely celebrate and partake in the goodness and diversity of different cultures. But equally, we need to sit up and take notice when their rights and freedoms are abused. There is so much to lose.

Making stoicism a daily practice

Stoicism, an ancient Greek and Roman philosophy, enjoyed a comeback during the pandemic. John Brinslie-Pirie has a nice piece on how he found stoicism useful during lockdown.

Indeed, in extraordinary times stoicism can provide great wisdom on the things you can and cannot control. But I posit that stoicism is even more important in ordinary times. When's it too easy to act on autopilot. To fall into bad habits, and fail to make new good habits stick. To trade big thoughts and big dreams for the normal routines of everyday life.

To that end, I've found The Daily Stoic extremely worthwhile. 

So what is stoicism?

First of all, there's probably not a lot within the stoic philosophy that will be new to people, especially for those familiar with Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. 

As far as ancient philosophies go, stoicism stands out for its everyday usefulness. It is centred around three central disciplines: 

• the discipline of perception (how we perceive the world); 
• the discipline of action (the decisions and actions we take, and to what end); 
• and the discipline of Will (how we deal with the things we cannot change, attain clear and convincing judgement, and come to a true understanding of our place in the world).

Practicing stoicism can provide greater mental clarity, help us pursue what is proper and just, and pursue the wisdom and perspective to deal with the world around us.

A common misconception is that stoicism is all about being unemotional and unmoved. In fact, that has come to be the common usage of the term. It's really not. Instead I see it more as a way of understanding our emotions, and what our emotional responses can tell us about our underlying values.

Is stoicism ideological?

No. It is an ancient philosophy. It is neither right wing nor left wing.

Yet, I'm not blind to the fact that of the people I know who have made stoicism part of their lives, they tend to be on the freedom end of the political spectrum.

Stoicism is not ideological, but is does reveal some of the philosophical underpinnings of political issues.

There are some obvious examples: personal responsibility plays a big part in the philosophy. In my last post, I wrote about how a lot of lifestyle regulations seem to deny the fact that most people are rational and free thinking beings who are capable of making a personal choice (bar some kind of major mental impairment or illness). This is a position at odds with stoicism which doesn't pretend exercising rational choices is always easy, just that humans can work to strengthen that capability. The reason why we don't always make choices that are in our best interests is often because of a struggle between our present and future selves. Stoicism acknowledges this, and provides tools for helping to work through that.

Stoicism also encourages freedom of thought in the pursuit of truth and wisdom. This isn't necessarily an ideological view. However it does mean that ideas, even controversial ideas ought not to be censored. It's a philosophical position that trusts in the ability to reason. For people to digest information from multiple sources to make up their own minds. In a different world, this feels like it shouldn't be a radical notion. 

Finally, perhaps those to the left of the political spectrum worry that stoicism is an individualistic, selfish philosophy. And it might be, if the only end you were pursuing is professional-betterment. The Silicon Valley-types have definitely given the philosophy a bad name in this respect. But it seems like a pretty weird place to end up. Stoicism isn't a life hack. It's a deep contemplation about our place in the world and how to make the most of it.

The missing part of mental health

New Zealand society has gotten a lot better about talking about mental illness, and that's a really good thing.*

What we don't really talk about is that grey area where you may not be mentally ill, but there's still something important missing. 

That something is what I'd loosely call philosophical grounded-ness. Where you don't have a 'why' to live for, or clear values to guide decisions. Sometimes that doesn't matter, you just get on with living. For people who have religion in their lives, it might not be an issue. Sometimes, though, that void can have a huge impact on mental wellbeing.

Whether it's stoicism or not, I think it's well worth talking more about philosophy and what it means for how we live our lives.

I am not your model stoic

This feels like a weird thing to write about given I am by no means a model stoic. I am but a baby stoic who on average makes ten bad decisions before lunchtime. 

But I think that's why this book appeals so much. Even if I slip up or have bad days, the Daily Stoic's meditations are designed to keep the reader on track.

And at least the book's insights go a little deeper than that other self help book I read that taught me to make my bed, have good posture and pet stray cats.

*By the way, stoicism is no replacement for getting proper mental health support if you need it. It can certainly be a complement, but I wouldn't take it as an exhortation to continue struggling through or to feel shame in admitting you need real help.