There is good reason to think the Global Financial Crisis will last a few years longer. Listener: 10 July, 2010. Keywords: Macroeconomics & Money; We once had a Ford Escort that got stuck crossing fords. (We called it the Ford which wouldn’t.) The first time this happened, I involuntarily switched on the starter motor, which…
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U3A; Christchurch, 6 July 2010 Keywords: Political Economy & History; The continent Zealandia, on which New Zealand sits, is the eroded soil from the Australian continent which, over hundreds of millions of years, was swept down the rivers to the sea along its eastern coast where it compacted and solidified. About 70 million years ago…
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The Expo in Shanghai is more China looking outwards than showing off to the world. Listener: June 26, 2010. Keywords: Political Economy & History; Aside from artists, scholars and the peasants, few – Asians or Europeans – come out well in Chinese history. Perhaps %China’s geography does not allow it. I once wrote a column…
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Spirited Conversations, 23 June, 2010, Nelson. Keywords: Political Economy & History; Being Able to Predict Government Policy The topic initially suggested for tonight’s Spirited Conversations was to talk about the 2010 budget. I knew that this event would be two months later, by which time things would have moved on. So I chose instead ‘Does…
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Note to a foreign policy meeting under Chatham House rules, 21 June, 2010. Keywords: Globalisation & Trade; Political Economy & History; The central thesis of my paper is that the balance of world economic power is changing dramatically. The shift reflects the world economy shifting back to the pattern of the eighteenth century and earlier…
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Plan for the inconceivable, so you don’t get caught up the creek without a Plan B. Listener: 12 June 2010. Keywords: Business & Finance; In November 1967, the inconceivable happened: the UK devalued the pound. The following weekend Leyland Motor Corporation implemented its Plan B, announcing new offshore prices for its cars. Much later, British…
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Human “rights” are often riddled with ambiguity – which is why they can be such a worry. Listener: 29 May, 2010. Keywords: History of Ideas, Methodology & Philosophy; Maori; How is it possible to say New Zealand’s signing of the UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples is of no great consequence (the Prime…
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What the Government’s strategy is likely to be for the upcoming Budget. Listener: 15 May, 2010 Keywords: Macroeconomics & Money; One “crisis” strategy is to announce that something is desperately wrong, which needs a dramatic policy change to fix it. Closer inspection shows the claim is more hysteria than careful assessment; the new policy benefits…
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Why is the Government proposing public-sector mergers for so little apparent benefit? Listener: 1 May, 2010. Keywords: Governance; At a certain point in the political cycle, governments start following officials’ agendas that make no political sense but meet some administrative need. All policy changes upset the people whose interests are harmed. These changes often reflect…
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Presentation to an EPMU seminar, 29 April, 2010 Keywords: Globalisation & Trade; Labour Studies; Twenty years ago the Engineering Union commissioned me to think about the alternative to Rogernomics. According to the last prime minister, Helen Clark, my report Open Growth was influential on the last Labour Government’s economic strategy, although it was not totally…
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This was an entry for a venture which did not proceed. (April 2010) Keywords: Political Economy & History; Introduction While New Zealand has about 0.1% of the world’s population, its economy produces about 0.3% of the world’s material output. Based on this material output (GDP per capita) the OECD places it in the middle to…
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Commissioned Report: April 2010 Keywords: Health; Regulation & Taxation; Social Policy; Executive Summary The following is not the usual executive summary. Rather it draws out the policy implications of the known costs and benefits of gambling, thereby summarising the main report, which consists of two parts. Appendix I is a general account about how economists…
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Why more townies should spend an occasional day on a farm. Listener: 17 April, 2010. Keywords: Business & Finance; Occasionally a townie should go to a field day on farming, as I did recently at Glenside Station, near Gladstone in the Wairarapa. Covering 1125ha and carrying about 10,000 stock units – mainly sheep and beef…
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It may be all Greek to some, but New Zealand risks getting caught in the storm. Listener: 3 April, 2010. Keywords: Macroeconomics & Money; It’s possible – although not certain – there will be a second phase of the global financial crisis, involving sovereign nations rather than financial institutions. To protect their citizens from the…
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Business Herald, 26 March 2010. Keywords: Growth & Innovation; While accelerating the rate of GDP – even catching up with Australia – may be an official aspiration it is not simply a matter of trebling productivity as one businessman airily explained to me; he changed the topic when I asked how his firm is going…
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A fundamental change in the global economy bodes well for New Zealand. Listener: 20 March, 2010 Keywords: Globalisation & Trade; Throughout most of the 20th century, the prices we got for our farm exports fell relative to what we paid for our imports. This drop in our terms of trade meant we had to export…
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Presentation for the Wellington Branch of the NZIIA AGM, 16 March 2010 Keywords: Globalisation & Trade; Last year was a period of economic re-stabilisation after the Global Financial Crisis which began in 2008, although there were clear signs of its onset in 2007 and even 2006. It would be easy to think that the world…
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If you wanted to close the gap with Australia, wouldn’t you look at why the gap exists? Listener: 6 March, 2010. Keywords: Growth & Innovation; A meta-analysis brings together all the existing research studies, pooling their conclusions to get an overall one that is more precise and revealing than the individual studies. John Hattie, professor…
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This was a note I prepared following a discussion on some troubling statistics. 1 March, 2010. Keywords: Labour Studies; Statistics; Suppose you did exactly the same job for the whole of your life. How do you think your wages would increase the same as inflation, or faster? I cant be sure of the answer for…
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PSA Journal, March 2010. Keywords: Distributional Economics; Regulation & Taxation; In my Commercialisation of New Zealand there is a chapter on ‘the abandoning of equity’, of how under Rogernomics social fairness went steadily down in the policy priorities. The report on tax reform by the Victoria University of Wellington Tax Working Group (TWG) confirms the…
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