Monthly Archives: February 2005

Medical Misadventures: Should Patients Be Compensated for Managerial Failure?

This entry was posted in Health, Listener, Social Policy on by .

Listener: 26 February, 2005.

Keywords: Health; Social Policy;

An earlier column Accidents Will Happen (April 17, 2004) commended the proposed change in the ACC compensation criteria from medical error (which involves fault) and medical mishap (with a rare and severe outcome) to the situation where unexpected treatment injury occurs. The column worried that the opportunities the new scheme promises for prevention might be overlooked. I gather the ACC is instituting a programme to improve the medical safety cultures of health professionals. Great. As the column concluded, the biggest gains from the reform may be that there will be less medical misadventure.

Serendipity in Museums

This entry was posted in Growth & Innovation, Literature and Culture on by .

Fulbright New Zealand Quarterly Vol 11, no 1, February 2005, p. 3.

Keywords: Growth & Innovation; Literature and Culture;

A Fullbrighter cannot spend all his or her time reading, writing, attending lectures and formal occasions, and visiting people. My indulgence was to visit the museums and galleries which enrich such cities as Washington and Boston. Entirely for myself you understand, for there was no mention of them in my application to spend time in the US studying its economy in the context of globalisation. (Maybe the visiting is a compensation for childhood deprivation, when they closed the Canterbury Museum for what seemed an eternity.)

Taxing Alcoholic Beverages in New Zealand

This entry was posted in Health on by .

Revised Version of Paper for “Thinking Drinking: Achieving Cultural Change by 2020″, Melbourne, 21-23 February, 2005.

Keywords: Health; Regulation & Taxation;

I thought a useful contribution would be to describe the recent history of alcohol taxation in New Zealand, explaining the principles underlying the changes and discussing some unresolved issues.

Some Things We Know About Economic Globalisation

This entry was posted in Globalisation & Trade, Growth & Innovation on by .

Notes prepared for a meeting (February 2005).

Keywords: Globalisation & Trade; Growth & Innovation;

My research is concerned with understanding the underlying process of globalisation., providing a foundation for policy and evaluation. But it is not policy focussed, nor does it aim to come to some simple conclusion about whether globalisation is ‘good’ or ‘bad’. To worry at this stage about such issues would be to damage the development of the understanding of the foundations.

Testing Economics:

This entry was posted in Education, History of Ideas, Methodology, Philosophy, Listener on by .

A Professional Economist Tackles the Controversial Seventh Form Economics Examination

Listener: 12 February, 2005.

Keywords: Education; History of Ideas, Methodology & Philosophy;

Intrigued by a row over some questions in the 2004 Level 3 (Seventh Form) NCEA economics exam, I obtained the paper. It is in four sections. The first two, “Understanding marginal analysis and the behaviour of firms” and “Understanding the market and allocative efficiency”, required the student’s mastery of some standard economic concepts.

Payback Time

This entry was posted in Globalisation & Trade, Listener on by .

The suggestion that rich nations should freeze debt repayments for hard-pressed countries has focussed attention on the ethics of international money lending.

Listener 5 February, 2004

Keywords: Globalisation & Trade;

As the world seeks to give a hand-up to the countries devastated by the Asian tsunami, and the finance ministers of the world’s seven most powerful economies (the G7) come together in London this week, debt is firmly back on the political agenda.