A Report prepared in February 2003.
Keywords: Growth & Innovation; Statistics;
Contents
Introduction
What is GDP?
Comparing GDP Through Time
Comparing GDP Between Countries: Purchasing Power Parity
How Satisfactory is the Adjustment?
Comparisons Through Time
Scaling PPP adjusted GDP
Ranking by GDP
Does GDP Measure Economic Welfare?
Alternative Measures to GDP
Notes
Listener: 17 July 2004.
Keywords: Political Economy & History;
Only two ministers opposed the Labour Cabinet’s proposal for a flat income tax in December 1987. A month later, one, Prime Minister David Lange unilaterally canned the proposal because it would make the poor worse off. The other was Michael Cullen, then Minister of Social Welfare, now Minister of Finance.
Listener: 10 July 2004.
Keywords: Political Economy & History;
‘The Hidden Irish: Ulster: New Zealand Migration and Cultural Transfers’, a conference of the Irish-Scottish Studies Programme of the Stout Research Centre, 29-31 July, 2004.
Keywords: Political Economy & History;
John Ballance was the first New Zealand premier to die in office, and is the second youngest to so die – at 54 years and a month, 30 months later than Norman Kirk. Like Kirk he was premier for a very short time, 26 months – although he had earlier been a cabinet minister for a total of four and a half years. Yet his premiership was one of the most important in New Zealand’s history, even if it gets forgotten behind that of his immediate successor, Richard John Seddon.
Presentation to the Annual Conference of the Industry Training Federation, 16 July, 2004, Wellington.
Keywords: Education; Labour Studies;
Economists are not very good at forecasting the future. I look at what I wrote twenty years ago, and realise just how much I got it wrong. Or you might consider that before you is one of the first New Zealand university students to use a mainframe computer, someone who encouraged his children to use ZX81s, who was probably one of the first economists in New Zealand to use a PC (a 186), and who still failed to forecast the ICT revolution.
Presentation to Hamilton Branch of the NZIIA, July 20, 2004.
Keywords: Globalisation & Trade;
In late 2003 I was awarded a three year Marsden Grant to study globalisation and New Zealand’s role in it. Globalisation is a topic I have been long working upon, developing out of my earlier study of the New Zealand economy summarised in my book In Stormy Seas: The Post-War New Zealand Economy, whose theme was that the fate of New Zealand will be largely a consequence of what happens overseas, together with our ability to seize the opportunities and manage the problems. This paper sketches the research program, and looks at one of the issues – international trade.
The Constitutional Underpinnings of the United States Economic Performance.
Presentation to a Fulbright New Zealand Meeting, August 3 2004.
Keywords: Globalisation & Trade;
I am not going to spend a lot of time thanking Fulbright New Zealand for its generous and visionary grant. The real value is demonstrated by its influence on my thinking. Today’s lecture and my subsequent work is the gratitude.
Paper for the AGM of the Auckland Child Poverty Action Group, 19 July, 2004
Keywords: Social Policy;
The government has at last attempted to address child poverty. And not a year too soon, for 2004 is also the 30th anniversary of the major research paper, Poverty in New Zealand which pointed out that poverty was mainly in households with children. That one main fact about poverty in New Zealand, often gets lost behind a myriad of minor facts. The consequence is that attempts to reduce poverty are at best inefficient, and at worst ineffective. That primary fact is that a substantial majority of the poor are children and their parents and we need to target on their needs.
Revised version of a paper presented at a conference, July 2004.
Keywords: Political Economy & History;
Introduction
The Nationbuilders described a particular phase in New Zealand’s economic and political history, between 1932 when Gordon Coates became Minister of Finance and the election of the Labour Government in 1984. It follows a group of (mainly) men embarking upon a strategy of developing an independent nation with its own economy and culture but engaging with the rest of the world. The story is told through their biographies, but it could have been told through historical sequence or policy themes, or with more biographies had there been the space.
These notes were prepared are for a discussion in July 2004. They do not represent the interests, views, or expectations of anybody else.
Keywords: Growth & Innovation;
In February 2002, The government set down its growth and innovation strategy in Growing an Innovative New Zealand. These notes are about where it might want to do next.
Notes prepared for an informal presentation (June 2004)
Keywords: Growth & Innovation; Political Economy & History;
The ‘Growth Culture’ report of the Growth and Innovation Advisory Board (on which I am on) raises major questions about the direction of economic policy. The survey had been commissioned to understand how the public could be involved more effectively in the economic growth strategy. However their responses firmly indicated that the large majority of the public had objectives which were different from those espoused by the nation’s economic leadership.
Notes for a chapter in a book Leadership and Political Change (June 2004)
Keywords: Political Economy & History;
My book, The Nationbuilders, described a particular phase in New Zealand’s economic and political history, between 1932 when Gordon Coates became Minister of Finance and the election of the Labour Government in 1984. It describes a group of (mainly) men embarking upon a strategy of developing an independent nation with its own economy and culture but engaging with the rest of the world. I told the story through their biographies, but it could have been told other ways, through historical sequence or policy themes for instance, or with more biographies, had there been the space.
Listener: 26 June 2004.
Keywords: Globalisation & Trade;
Economists have traditionally divided the economy into the primary, secondary and tertiary sectors. The justification is long forgotten, but geographically, the primary sector – farming, fishing, forestry and mining – had to be close to the resources it processes, while the tertiary sector – services are the most prominent – had to be near its customers. Secondary – manufacturing – had more locational choice, which is why much policy was directed towards influencing its location. The categorisation was never perfect. Tourism is in the service sector, but it brings its customers to its location. Perhaps it should be reclassified as primary. Other service activities – the education of foreign students – also bring the customer to them. But in recent years, other chunks of the service industry have gone walkabout, as telecommunications costs have collapsed.
Listener 12 June 2004.
Keywords: Globalisation & Trade;
Other than the New Zealand embassy, it was the only occasion I entered an official building in America without having to showing an identity card. For Congress (the American parliament) is insistent that little should come between them and their constituents. (But yes, there was the metal detector.)
International experts give New Zealand’s economy the thumbs-up, but the media fail to bring it to public attention.
Listener: 29 May, 2004.
Keywords: Growth & Innovation; Macroeconomics & Money;
A Fulbright New Zealand grant enabled me to visit a number of research colleagues in the US, including the IMF team that visited New Zealand in February. The International Monetary Fund has a programme of annual consultations with its member countries in which the economy and economic management are reviewed. The focus of our Washington meeting was on some mutual research interests, but the team mentioned that their New Zealand review would be published the following day. Early the next morning, I scanned the websites to see what our journalists made of the report.
A STRANGE OUTCOME: The remarkable survival of a Polish child by John Roy-Woljciechowski and Allan Parker.
Listener: 22 May, 2004.
Keywords: Miscellaneous; Political Economy & History;
One of the proudest letters any New Zealand Prime Minister wrote was by Peter Fraser in 1943, beginning, “With reference to our discussion concerning the reception of Polish refugee children in New Zealand … I have to inform you that the New Zealand Government would be very willing to afford the hospitality in New Zealand to a total number … of 500-700.”
This is an addition to The Impact of International Price Discrepancies on PPP-adjusted GDP and expands on material in Estimating Production and Income Across Nations: Reconciling the Differences: the New Zealand Experience .
Keywords: Statistics;
While the nominal output of an economy, usually called ‘Gross Domestic Product’ or GDP is exactly the same whether it is measured by what is produced or how it is disposed – on the production side or the expenditure side of the economy. This occurs because the incomes the expenditure generates exactly matches the outlays (including investments) the incomes finance. However this mathematical congruency does not apply when a different set of prices is applied to the production and expenditure sides of an open economy, even if the prices are consistent. The difference arises because the goods and services consumed in an open economy differ from that which is produced because some of the domestic production is exchanged for foreign production, that is it is exported to in exchange for imports. The ratio of the exchange values can vary, and that leads to the difference when, for instance, constant price GDP estimates are made over time. This exchange ratio can be measured as the ration of export prices over import prices. Note that the exchange rate does not directly influence the terms of trade ratio, providing the prices are measured either in the local currency or the international currency.
Keywords: Growth & Innovation; Statistics;
Sources of Economic Growth in New Zealand: A Comparative Analysis is a paper attached to the latest IMF review of the New Zealand economy, prepared by Abdelhak Senhadji who was one of the IMF review team. It is on the IMF website After reviewing the record of New Zealand’s slow growth performance it presents a (reduced form) econometric equation which attempts to provide quantitative estimates of various influences on New Zealand’s poor performance. This paper reviews the study.
Listener: 15 May, 2004.
Keywords: Environment & Resources;
Energy is ultimately the key to sustainability, but the first civilisations were based on water. In some cases, the quality water supplies ran out, perhaps from rising salt in irrigated soil, and the civilisation died. This threat is not peculiar to the past. There are great lakes in the middle of Asia dying from mismanagement, African countries dispute over water from the Nile, and even the US and Australia have major water systems that are disappearing or the soil is suffering from excess salt, with serious economic consequences.
Prepared May 2004, with thanks to Les Oxley.
Keywords: Growth & Innovation; Macroeconomics & Money;
This paper is an econometric successor to my 1997 book In Stormy Seas, and my 2004 lecture The Development of the New Zealand Economy. I pointed out there that post-war New Zealand GDP grew at broadly the same rate as the rest of the OECD except to the extent the export sector experienced changes in profitability indicated by the terms of trade and the real exchange rate.