Instead of delivering growth, some neoliberal policies have increased inequality, in turn jeopardizing durable expansion
Milton Friedman in 1982 hailed Chile as an “economic miracle.” Nearly a decade earlier, Chile had turned to policies that have since been widely emulated across the globe. The neoliberal agenda—a label used more by critics than by the architects of the policies—rests on two main planks. The first is increased competition—achieved through deregulation and the opening up of domestic markets, including financial markets, to foreign competition. The second is a smaller role for the state, achieved through privatization and limits on the ability of governments to run fiscal deficits and accumulate debt.
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•The benefits in terms of increased growth seem fairly difficult to establish when looking at a broad group of countries.
•The costs in terms of increased inequality are prominent. Such costs epitomize the trade-off between the growth and equity effects of some aspects of the neoliberal agenda.
•Increased inequality in turn hurts the level and sustainability of growth. Even if growth is the sole or main purpose of the neoliberal agenda, advocates of that agenda still need to pay attention to the distributional effects.
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Austerity policies not only generate substantial welfare costs due to supply-side channels, they also hurt demand—and thus worsen employment and unemployment. The notion that fiscal consolidations can be expansionary (that is, raise output and employment), in part by raising private sector confidence and investment, has been championed by, among others, Harvard economist Alberto Alesina in the academic world and by former European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet in the policy arena. However, in practice, episodes of fiscal consolidation have been followed, on average, by drops rather than by expansions in output. On average, a consolidation of 1 percent of GDP increases the long-term unemployment rate by 0.6 percentage point and raises by 1.5 percent within five years the Gini measure of income inequality (Ball and others, 2013).
In sum, the benefits of some policies that are an important part of the neoliberal agenda appear to have been somewhat overplayed. In the case of financial openness, some capital flows, such as foreign direct investment, do appear to confer the benefits claimed for them. But for others, particularly short-term capital flows, the benefits to growth are difficult to reap, whereas the risks, in terms of greater volatility and increased risk of crisis, loom large.
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Moreover, since both openness and austerity are associated with increasing income inequality, this distributional effect sets up an adverse feedback loop. The increase in inequality engendered by financial openness and austerity might itself undercut growth, the very thing that the neoliberal agenda is intent on boosting. There is now strong evidence that inequality can significantly lower both the level and the durability of growth (Ostry, Berg, and Tsangarides, 2014).
The stock market is a measure of how much wealth can be stolen from workers and, in the case of insurance, from the insurance policyholders. So the stock price going down means that shareholders expect less of that than before.
Results from 5 uncontrolled, observational studies suggest that, in children and adolescents
with gender dysphoria, gender-affirming hormones are likely to improve symptoms of gender
dysphoria, and may also improve depression, anxiety, quality of life, suicidality, and
psychosocial functioning. The impact of treatment on body image is unclear. All results were
of very low certainty using modified GRADE
Safety outcomes were reported in 5 observational studies. Statistically significant increases
in some measures of bone density were seen following treatment with gender-affirming
hormones, although results varied by bone region (lumber spine versus femoral neck) and
by population (transfemales versus transmales). However, z-scores suggest that bone
density remained lower in transfemales and transmales compared with an equivalent
cisgender population. Results from 1 study of gender-affirming hormones started during
adolescence reported statistically significant increases in blood pressure and body mass
index, and worsening of the lipid profile (in transmales) at age 22 years, although longer
term studies that report on cardiovascular event rates are required. Adverse events and
discontinuation rates associated with gender-affirming hormones were only reported in 1
study, and no conclusions can be made on these outcomes.
Efficiency is about physics. You can't break the laws of physics. Economics are not physics and subsidies can go in many different directions.
If we plan on using the land to store carbon, to restore ecosystems and biodiversity, then land use and land use intensity will have to decrease, which will mean that we have make sure that land is used to feed people, not to feed food.
If you're going to say "waste", don't bother. Waste firstly has to be reduced, and we need the rest for compost.
Your appeal to density works much like the bird CAFOs now in the face of HPAI. You think you've figured out a cheat, but, over time, it averages back down.
"Economic" depends on the subsidies which exist regardless of the species of those organisms.
There are many studies on these conversion ratios, I just wanted to point at one that gets into the "waste promise" too.
Nothing is going to beat eating plants because plants are primary producers of calories, amino-acids, fats.
What is going to happen, especially in the Western places where meat is in large demand and large supply, is that subsidies for insect farming are going to sustain the usual vertebrate farming.
Perhaps because it's nearly normal now, so the distinction is not necessary.