Much of the commentary on the budget was shallow. What is really going on is that the changes are small but they reflect a particular political perspective. The financial threat was hardly discussed Allow me to be irritated by the trivial discussion which surrounds the government’s annual budget. The budget is simply the government setting out…
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Following up my ‘AUT Policy Observatory’ report on ‘Housing Prices Relative to Consumer Prices: An Analysis’. Last week the Reserve Bank reported stress tests to assess the ability of borrowers to cope with higher mortgage interest rates. Assuming 7 percent p.a. – close to the average two-year mortgage rate over past decades – the RBNZ…
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This report was published by the AUT Policy Observatory. It’s abstract is This is an update of a note I wrote in April 2007. It uses a longer housing price series that starts in 1962 (instead of 1980) and finishes in 2016 (instead of 2007). It shows that while historically housing prices have risen a little faster than consumer prices, the…
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This paper on public debt strategy is published as an AUT Briefing paper. It is available here.
Or has Labour lost its clothes or forgotten how to put them on. Some Labour supporters are disturbed that the government seems to be stealing their policies. Probably National is shifting a bit to the centre, perhaps for electoral reasons (although the party is almost certainly more concerned with New Zealand First than Labour) and…
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Managing the government’s fiscal deficit need not mean cutting social expenditure. An economic Austerian is someone who advocates cutting government spending, particularly social expenditures, in order to eliminate a government’s fiscal deficits. (The name is a portmanteau of ‘austerity’ and ‘Austrian’ from the neoliberal ‘Austrian School of Economics’.) While Austerian policies are currently most evidently…
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Do residential care workers deserve the big pay increase they are getting? The recent historic pay equity deal for aged and residential care workers raises a tricky clash between quite different accounts of how the economy should work. Many people think that workers should be paid at a rate that reflects their social worth; others…
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The report of the Productivity Commission on the Tertiary Education Sector “New Models of Tertiary Education” is complacent. The report observes that in the decade from 2001 to 2011, the ratio of non-academic and academic staff in the public tertiary educational system rose from about equal to six non-academics to five academics. In fact the number…
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If Jim Bolger now opposes Ruthanasia, why did he preside over its implementation? I quite understand Jim Bolger’s rejection of neo-liberalism. Bolger is an active Catholic (as is Bill English); neoliberal ideology is a long way from Catholic social teaching. Ironically, there was a Papal Encyclical, Centesimus Annus, in 1991 as Bolger presided over the neoliberal policies…
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Are Labour’s proposals for the changing the way the Reserve Bank operates sensible or nutty (as nutty as the current legislation)? Section 8 of the 1964 Reserve Bank of New Zealand Act stated that ‘monetary policy of the Government … shall be directed to the maintenance and promotion of economic and social welfare in New…
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Past policies of banging on about economic growth have failed. A new report argues we should strategise differently with more comprehensive goals. The response by some regional leaders to Julian Wood’s Growing Beyond Growth: Rethinking the Goals of Regional Development while not unexpected was so typical of much public policy discussion. They had not read (or understood)…
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Extracted from a paper delivered to Wellington South Rotary; 22 March 1. The US is No Longer The International Hegemon There have been only two global hegemons – states with political, economic and military predominance or control over all others.. One was Britain in the nineteenth century. It was replaced by the US from about…
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Is the fiscal pact between Labour and the Greens a defeat for the left? The parliamentary left seems cowed by the neoliberals if the fiscal pact between Labour and the Greens is anything to go by. This column focuses on their fourth promise which observes that ‘Core Crown spending has been around 30% of GDP…
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How do New Zealand’s university departments rank internationally? Once a year the QS World University Rankings on individual subject areas are published. This reports on the 2017 rankings for 46 subjects. Each of the subject rankings is compiled using four sources. The first two are QS’s global surveys of academics and employers, which are used to assess…
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Paper to Wellington South Rotary; 22 March, 2017 Thankyou for the invitation to talk about contemporary world economy. I am not going to give a blow-by-blow account of the challenges New Zealand currently faces; instead I am going to place them in a broad context. What I am arguing – I am uncertain, of course…
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A recent government report projects huge increases in employment but at least 72 percent of those jobs are to go to immigrants. I was a bit startled by a report recently released by the Ministry of Business Industry and Employment which forecast an extra 480,000 jobs over the next ten years. Those with a memory will recall…
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Regrettably, the government’s recent announcements on the public provision for retirement have added to the uncertainty the young face. The Government’s announced proposal to raise the age of eligibility for New Zealand Superannuation (NZS) is a real botch job. I’ll leave others to write about the political botch; here the focus is on the policy….
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This is a follow up ‘Brentry: How New Zealand Coped’, setting out some of the challenges which face New Zealand today. The strategic view that Britain needs to be in the EU remains universal among New Zealand strategists. However the Leaves did not vote geopolitically but on domestic considerations including, apparently, resentment of immigration and…
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This is based on a note that I prepared for a journalist. It is a lead into the next column which is on ‘Brexit: How New Zealand Might Cope’. New Zealand has an unusual situation in the world economy. Despite being among the affluent economies, its success is vitally dependent upon the export of some…
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Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey, Where wealth accumulates, and men decay: Princes and lords may flourish, or may fade— A breath can make them, as a breath has made:…
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