Author Archives: Brian Easton

Essays from Washington

This entry was posted in Miscellaneous on by .

On occasions while in visiting Washington as a Fulbright Distinguished Scholar in April and May 2004, I wrote items, sometimes almost full essays – often with an hour of returning home – about some of my experiences to send to friends. There are published here.

Keywords: Miscellaneous;

The Pro-abortion Anti-Bush(?) Demonstration
Mont Vernon: George Washington’s Farm
The House Agriculture Committee
Yevgeny Yevtushenko
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
The Mayas At the National Gallery
Freedom Park
Shakespeare in America
 The Baghdad Times

The Public Domain: Who Will ”Own” the Foreshore?

This entry was posted in Environment & Resources, Listener, Maori on by .

Listener: 1 May 2004.

Keywords: Environment & Resources; Maori;

Property rights – the rights to use, transform and transfer (sell) a resource – is a better term than “ownership” because there are so many aspects to them and different groups can share the rights. An effective market needs a clear and comprehensive definition of those property rights. The economic reforms of the 1980s clarified many. Sometimes the outcomes were paradoxical. The largest ever nationalisation in dollar terms was by Rogernomes, for the government first had to own State Insurance before it could privatise it. But property rights continue to trouble us.

enhancing Income Generation Through Adult Education, a Comparative Study.

This entry was posted in Education on by .

Edited by Richard G. Bagnall, (The Asia-South Pacific Bureau of Adult Education, 2003).

Keywords: Education;

One of the hardest questions that advanced education is facing is its role in vocational training.
As it gargantuan appetite for funds began absorbing an increasing proportion of national output, some educationalists seized upon the thesis that education contributes to economic growth so an
the investment in it would pay for itself. This is so well accepted, that to say that the thesis is a
hypothesis with little empirical underpinning would leave many educationalists puzzled (although one might add that this is true for most statement about economic growth – it is surprising how little we know about the causes of economic growth: most expressed certainties are hypotheses). The most extremist version of this view is that public education is only about contributing to economic growth, a position which largely drove New Zealand’s tertiary education reforms of the early nineties, and from which the system is still recovering. But the view that commerce and growth is central to education is now so widespread that it is rarely challenged.

Accidents Will Happen

This entry was posted in Social Policy on by .

The ACC reforms for treatment injury should replace a culture of blame with a culture of safety.

Listener: 17 April, 2004.

Keywords: Social Policy;

A friend recovering from a serious operation was on two occasions offered medicine that was not prescribed and, once, a scan that was unnecessary. Suppose she had been unconscious, or lacked the character to know what was going on and say “no”. Whether the mistakes could have led to medical injury, I cannot tell. But they would have consumed scarce resources.

Currency Appreciation

This entry was posted in Listener, Macroeconomics & Money on by .

Trying to make sense of a rising exchange rate.
Listener: 3 April, 2004.

Keywords: Macroeconomics and Money.

The conventional wisdom, like generals, fights the last war. Its complaints about the high exchange rate are from the perspective of the late 1980s. You may recall a few intrepid souls then arguing that the hike in the real exchange rate undermined the profitability of the tradeable sector, which generates foreign exchange by exporting or conserves it by import substitution. The weakened sector would slow overall economic growth, as happened. Meanwhile, the generals, fighting the earlier Muldoon war, ignored the exchange rate, completely failing to predict the poor economic performance.

Savings and Loan, Loan, Loan (review)

This entry was posted in Business & Finance, Listener on by .

SAVING THE SUN: Shinsei and the battle for Japan’s future by Gillian Tett
Listener: 27 March, 2004.

Keywords: Business & Finance;

One day in 1999, banker Takashi Uehara checked into a suburban hotel in 1999 and then hanged himself. His suicide note read, “I am so sorry.” It was a traditional hara-kiri, except that ritual disembowelment –– slashing one’s stomach open with four precise strokes of the sword –– was considered too selfish and messy, whereas the anonymous event in the hotel spared his family the shock. To this mixture of Japanese and Western values was added those of the finance sector, for the shame Uehara wished to expunge was that his bank was going bankrupt.

Some Comments About the Theory and New Zealand Economic Growth

This entry was posted in Growth & Innovation, History of Ideas, Methodology, Philosophy on by .

Formal contribution to the MED Panel on economic growth: 24 March, 2004.

Keywords: Growth & Innovation; History of Ideas, Methodology & Philosophy;

In the last three weeks we have had three interesting introductions to elements of growth theory. I do not see them as independent paradigms contesting with one another, but rather they are different facets of a more comprehensive growth theory. One thing which came through clearly, is that Solow’s neo-classical model of growth, now 45 odd years old, was both a powerful stimulus to growth theory, but very deficient. Much of the work of the last five decades has been trying to overcome those weaknesses. Many remain unresolved, and the empirical underpinnings of growth theory are still tenuous. Yet we tend to lapse back into a pure Solow model with its high degree of aggregation and vague notions of technology.

Culture Matters

This entry was posted in Health, Listener, Maori on by .

Don Brash says, “I can’t think of anything in health which is specifically Maori.” So why treat Maori differently?

Listener: 20 March, 2004.

Keywords: Health; Maori;

Sadly, the proportion of Maori who smoke, and as a consequence suffer the diseases from smoking and die early, is higher than that of Pakeha. Moreover, although there has been some success from the campaign to reduce smoking, it seems to have had little impact on Maori rates. So it makes sense to have a specifically Maori anti-smoking campaign, administered by Maori. One of its successes has been that most marae now ban smoking. No Pakeha-dominated organisation could have achieved such an outcome.

When GDP and GDE Are Not Equal

This entry was posted in Statistics on by .

Keywords: Statistics;

Introduction

It is an elementary truism of economics that Gross Domestic Product can be measured on the production side (that is in terms of the products of firms) and the expenditure side (that is in terms of the final purchases of the products) and the two aggregates are exactly equal to one another (although in practice there will be a measurement error, called the ‘statistical discrepancy’).

Measuring PPP-adjusted GDP (index)

This entry was posted in Statistics on by .

MEASURING PPP-ADJUSTED GDP (INDEX)
This is the index of a series of papers concerned with PPP measures. The papers are in varying presentational styles and also reflects my growing understanding of the issues involved, and my improving presentation of them.

Keywords: Statistics;

Your Friends and Neighbours

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

Who really benefits from the US/Australian Free Trade Agreement?
Listener: 6 March, 2004.

Keywords: Globalisation & Trade;

Free (or preferential) Trade Agreements (FTAs) may not always benefit the economies involved. Certainly, there will be sector beneficiaries, and their acolytes will loudly proclaim the benefits, but within an economy there will also be losers. Do the sector benefits outweigh others’ detriments? The economist’s answer is “not necessarily”.

What Was a Pound Worth?

This entry was posted in Statistics on by .

The Reserve Bank of New Zealand Inflation Calculator and earlier

Keywords: Statistics;

As a part of its statutory responsibility for price stability, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand has provided a web based ‘Inflation Calculator’. Historians will find it useful to convert an earlier price into a current one, thus giving readers a better sense of the significance of a historical value.

The Development Of the New Zealand Economy (short Version)

This entry was posted in Growth & Innovation on by .

Paper for the Ministry of Economic Development Seminar Series: 25 February, 2004.

Keywords: Growth & Innovation

Notes: This is a the short version (about a third of the original’s length) of The Development of the New Zealand Economy.

1. The Political Economy of New Zealand’s Economic Development
2. Changing Sectors
3. The Course of GDP
4. The Long Run: 1861-2003
5. The Post-war Era
6. The 1966 External Shock and After
7. Explanations for the Slow New Zealand per capita GDP Growth
8. Non-Explanations for the Slow New Zealand per capita GDP Growth
9. Some Errors of Method
10. What Happened After 1984? Why the Great Post-War Stagnation?
11. The Importance of Thinking Sectorally
12. The Next Political Economy?
13. Conclusion

The Development Of the New Zealand Economy (i)

This entry was posted in Growth & Innovation on by .

Paper for the Ministry of Economic Development Seminar Series: 25 February, 2004.

Keywords: Growth & Innovation

Notes: This is a long paper, and is in two parts. There is a short version (of about a third the length). Despite its length, many of the arguments have had to be abbreviated. Some guidance is given in the text of web references where there is greater detail. More material will be found in the Index of New Zealand’s Economic Performance. The foundation source is the book “In Stormy Seas”

Go to Part II

1. The Political Economy of New Zealand’s Economic Development
2. Changing Sectors
3. The Course of GDP
4. The Long Run: 1861-2003
5. The Post-war Era
6. The 1966 External Shock and After
7. Explanations for the Slow New Zealand per capita GDP Growth
8. Non-Explanations for the Slow New Zealand per capita GDP Growth
9. Some Errors of Method
10. What Happened After 1984? Why the Great Post-War Stagnation?
11. The Importance of Thinking Sectorally
12. The Next Political Economy?
13. Conclusion

Appendix: Rankings and Relativities
Appendix II: Recent Developments in the Terms of Trade

The Development Of the New Zealand Economy (ii)

This entry was posted in Growth & Innovation on by .

Paper for the Ministry of Economic Development Seminar Series: 25 February, 2004.

Keywords: Growth & Innovation

This is a long paper, and is in two parts. This is the second part. Go to Part I. There is also a short version (of about a third the length).

Despite its length of the long paper, many of the arguments have had to be abbreviated. Some guidance is given in the text of web references where there is greater detail. More material will be found in the Index of New Zealand’s Economic Performance. The foundation source is the book “In Stormy Seas”

Part II consists of

10.What Happened After 1984? Why the Great Post-War Stagnation?
11.The Importance of Thinking Sectorally
12.The Next Political Economy?
13.Conclusion

Appendix II Recent Developments in the Terms of Trade

Recovery and Deficit: Where Is the Us Economy Going?

This entry was posted in Listener, Macroeconomics & Money on by .

Listener: 21 February, 2004.

Keywords: Macroeconomics & Money;

Many New Zealanders assumed that when our economy stagnated in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the rest of the world stagnated, too. In fact, it boomed, and New Zealand’s per capita GDP fell from the OECD average to 15 percent below. Similarly, there has been a tendency to assume that there was no world recession in the first few years of the millennium, because New Zealand was hardly affected by it.

The Econometrics Of Household Equivalence Scales

This entry was posted in Distributional Economics, Statistics on by .

Paper to the Wellington Statistics Group (WSG), 11 February, 2004.

Keywords: Distributional Economics; Statistics;

Contents
1. Claudio Michelini
2. Household Equivalence Scales
3. Characterising Equivalence Scales
4. Available Scales
5. Which Scale Should We Use?
6. Which Scale Do We Use?
7. A Simple Econometric Procedure
8. The Michelini Scale
9. Conclusion