Milton Friedman (1912-2006) contributed to economic analysis but was also an important economic philosopher. Listener: 24 February, 2007. Keywords: Macroeconomics & Money; When Friedman visited New Zealand in 1981 he was interviewed for the Listener. Told that money supply (in this case Reserve Bank-issued currency plus trading bank lending, what economists call “M1”)…
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Paper for “Corporate Governance in the Public Sector 2007 Conference”, Wednesday 19 February, Wellington. [1] Keywords: Governance; By the 1980s the traditional regulation of New Zealand’s private and public sectors had become increasingly obsolete. The story of the shift to ‘more-market’ and the privatisation of some of the public sector is well known….
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Contribution to a Panel on ‘The Big Questions and Research Challenges in the economic history of Australia and New Zealand?’ AEHB Conference, Sydney, 14 February, 2007. Keywords: Political Economy & History; I have been asked to offer a New Zealand perspective on some of the big questions facing New Zealand economic history. My…
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A RESEARCH CHALLENGE IN THE ECONOMIC HISTORY OF AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND: Paper to a workshop at the 2007 EHSANZ Conference, Sydney, 14 February 2007.[1] Keywords: Political Economy & History; Exceptionalism is the notion that one nation’s story differs qualitatively from others, because of its unique origins, national credo, historical evolution, distinctive political and religious…
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The author has been awarded a 2007 Claude McCarthy Fellowship to develop a new economic history of New Zealand. This paper raises some issues. Keywords: Political Economy & History; General Histories of New Zealand New Zealand general histories tend to ignore the economy and its implications for the evolution of New Zealand….
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Studies of race relations are sometimes used to bolster prejudice, not reveal the truth. Listener: 10 February, 2007. Keywords: Health; Maori; Social Policy; Don Brash’s January 2004 Orewa speech may have been a key event in New Zealand race relations. The earlier foreshore and seabed decisions had stirred a restlessness about…
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Comments on a paper by Michael Moriarty. New Zealand-Pasifika: Interactions and Perspectives Conference, 8 February, 2007. Keywords: Globalisation & Trade; Thankyou Michael for a thought-provoking paper. Let me introduce your subject by saying a little more about the theory of borders. We need to distinguish jurisdictional borders from geographical borders. Jurisdictional…
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Tax cuts without any pain? You’d have to be daft to have swallowed that. Listener: 27 January, 2007. Keywords: Macroeconomics & Money; Nicky Hager’s The Hollow Men provides a fascinating insight into the realities of politics. A rich right-wing cabal got their man, Don Brash, into the leadership of the National Party. But the economic…
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Commentary on “Forging a Kiwi Economic Identity through Economic Transformation” by Trevor Mallard, Policy Quarterly, Volume 3, No 1, 2007. Keywords: Growth & Innovation; This paper responds to the Minister’s paper by providing a context in which the government’s economic transformation agenda operates. It argues that it is not a plan but a…
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Tiny Loans Are Making A Huge Difference for Some of the World’s Poorest Peoples Listener: 6 January, 2007. Keywords: Growth & Innovation; Macroeconomics & Money; The Nobel Memorial Prize in economics was founded by the Bank of Sweden in 1979. Economists have only been tangentially involved in Alfred Nobel’s much older awards for achievements which…
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Helen Clark and Michael Cullen have overseen a return to orthodox economic management. Listener: 30 December, 2006. Keywords: Political Economy & History; Asked to comment on Helen Clark’s performance, Roger Kerr said the Prime Minister had presided “over the continuation of the economic directions that the country moved towards in the 1980s…
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New Zealand’s nationbuilders aren’t just figures from the distant past. Listener: 16 December, 2006. Keywords: Political Economy & History; Many myths portray one’s ancestors as giants, titans beside whom their descendants, including the myth-tellers, are tiny. Did I fall into that trap in my book The Nationbuilders, about New Zealanders who shaped…
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Paper for the conference “Alcohol: Evidence-based Impacts and Interventions”, sponsored by the Center for Alcohol Studies, of the Health System Research Institute and the Department of Mental Health, Ministry of Public Health, Thailand, held 13 -14 December, 2006 in Bangkok. Keywords: Health; This paper is dedicated, with affection and respect, to the…
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Are public-private partnerships the next problem? Listener: 2 December, 2006. Keywords: Business & Finance At the launch of Treasury veteran Richard Shallcrass’s memoir Family Silver, David Caygill, who had been one of Shallcrass’s Finance Ministers, rejected the suggestion in David Lange’s autobiography that there might have been corruption in the privatising of state assets. Shallcrass, who…
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Paper to an AUT conference for Secondary School Economics Teachers, 24 November, 2006. (Revised) Keywords: History of Ideas, Methodology & Philosophy; I dedicate this lecture to Jack Shallcrass. Some 45 years ago he gave a lecture at Curious Cove on ‘The Right to Dissent’ which has stayed with me over all the years,…
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Paper to Labour Employment and Work Conference 12, Wednesday 15 November. Keywords: Globalisation & Trade; Labour Studies; Aging is a global phenomenon, that is it exists in may parts of the globe. This paper argues it is also a globalisation phenomenon, that is it involves the increasing interaction between national and regional economies…
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On Friday, November 17, 2006 the NZSO celebrates Shostakovich’s 100th anniversary in the Wellington Town Hall. Who cares? Listener: 18 November, 2006. I love a live symphony orchestra: the electricity of the concert hall sound; my eye identifying key instruments for my untutored ear; those inelegant sawings, bangings and puffings (harpists aside) that…
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Letter to an expatriate: 2031 . Listener: 4 November, 2006 . Keywords: Education; Dear Gerry, You’ve asked me what’s happened to New Zealand universities since we graduated all those years ago in 2006. Actually, the critical issue was finally identified that year. Even today it is remembered in the line “You can’t have the job…
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As a consequence of some discussions on corporate tax policy, I wrote this paper to sort out my ideas. As I state, I am not a tax specialist. Indeed it turns out what I thought was a profound discovery – that New Zealand’s corporate tax on undistributed earnings is a sort of capital gains tax…
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MMP has reduced policy extremism, but more consensus politics are needed to solve our big economic questions Listener: 21 October, 2006. Keywords: Environment & Resources; Governance; The rise in personality politics is an unexpected consequence of MMP. Certainly there are other factors, including a change in the US political debate (recall the attacks…
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