Author Archives: Brian Easton

Economic Globalisation and National Sovereignty (II)

This entry was posted in Globalisation & Trade, Governance, Political Economy & History on by .

Chapter for the New Zealand Government and Politics 2ed, edited by Raymond Miller (OUP). First Edition Chapter

Keywords: Globalisation & Trade; Governance; Political Economy & History;

In recent years there has been increasing concern that the phenomenon of supranational economic integration, popularly known as economic ‘globalisation’, is undermining the sovereignty of the nation state. In New Zealand, this has been symbolised by international agencies such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, and World Trade Organisation (WTO). This chapter will explore the economic context of the debate.

Two Great Economists: Raymond Firth (1901-2002) & James Tobin (1918-2002)

This entry was posted in History of Ideas, Methodology, Philosophy, Listener, Macroeconomics & Money, Maori on by .

Listener 25 January, 2003.

Keywords:
History of Ideas, Methodology & Philosophy; Macroeconomics & Money; Maori;

I would start a beginning course in economics with Economics of the New Zealand Maori by Raymond Firth, who died last year. Not only is the book a part of our heritage but it confronts students with the classical Maori economy which answered the central economic problems of ‘what, how, for whom, where and when’ in quite different ways from today. Starting with an alternative to the narrow idealised version of the US economy which they are usually taught, would help students realise how special it is. It might even suggest that every economy is particular, and such general economic principles there are, need not result in the policies which slavishly follow from the idealised US one.

Maori Index

This entry was posted in Index, Maori on by .

Items with a substantial discussion on the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi marked *

Keywords: Maori;

Riches without Wealth (November 1979)
For Whom the Treaty Tolls (February 1990)*
The Green Maori (May 1990)*
The Maori Broadcasting Claim: A Pakeha Economist’s Perspective (September 1990)*
Evidence of Brian Easton with Respect to Te Oneroa-O-Tohe (March 1991)*
Tikanga and Te Oneroa-O-Tohe (May 1991)*
Te Whakapakari Paapori, Ohanga o Muriwhenua (June 1993)
Fishing and the Chatham Islands (September 1993)
The Maori Geothermal Claim: A Pakeha Economist’s Perspective (September 1993)*
The Maori Electoral Enrolment Option Campaign (February 1994)
Contract, Covenant, Compact: the Social Foundations of New Zealand Governance (April 1994)*
The Maori in the Labour Force (November 1994)
A Quiet Revolutionary: Eru Woodbine Pomare: 1942-1995 (February 1995)
A Data Base for Iwi (May 1995)
Divided Issues: The Myth of the Unified Maori (June 1995)
Working with the Maori: Consultancy, Research, Friendship (August 1995)
The Economic and Social Impact of the Raupatu (October 1995)*
Maori Melting Pot (November 1996)
Was There a Treaty of Waitangi: Was it a Social Contract? (April 1997)*
Notes for a Presentation on Maori Exporting (October 1998)
Closing the Gaps: Policy or Slogan? (November 2000)
Two Great Economists: Raymond Firth (1901-2002) & James Tobin (1918-2002) (January 2003)
Rightful Owners (August 2003)*
Closing the Credibility Gap: Why Act’s Race-based Welfare Statistics Are Worthless. (February 2004)
Public Policy and the Maori. (February 2004)
Public Policy and the Maori. (March 2004)

This consists items only in the public domain, and excludes other work for iwi and government agencies.

Money Can’t Buy You Love

This entry was posted in History of Ideas, Methodology, Philosophy, Listener on by .

Why can’t economists measure wellbeing as material wealth?
Listener 11 January 2003.

Keywords: History of Ideas, Methodology & Philosophy;

While there is considerable national agreement that economic policy should aim to accelerate the growth of sustainable GDP, Gross Domestic Product only measures material output. Its designers never not intended it to assess human welfare. As economists have known for more than fifty years, GDP is not a good measure of wellbeing. While people in cold climates have bigger fuel bills, they are not necessarily better off than where it is warm. People in insecure environments spend more on the police and military, but better to be in a secure community. Where does friendship fit into GDP? Attempts to extend the concept (to include such things as non-market activities and the environment) do not solve the basic problem that material output is not the same thing as happiness.

High Spirits: Can We Spend and Tax Our Way to Healthier Drinking?

This entry was posted in Health, Listener, Regulation & Taxation on by .

Listener 28 December, 2002.

Keywords: Health; Regulation & Taxation;

The etching ‘Gin Lane’ by William Hogarth (1697-1764) shows an inebriated woman, ulcers on her legs from under-nourishment, her baby falling from her arms. On the steps below is the skeleton of a man – her fate too. Behind is commerce: the gin shop, the pawn shop and a funeral parlour. Above the arch beside her is written ‘drunk a penny, dead drunk tuppence, straw for free’: there was a kind of host responsibility even in 1750.

The Economic and Health Status Of Households Project (Index)

This entry was posted in Distributional Economics, Health, Index, Social Policy, Statistics on by .

Keywords: Distributional Economics; Health; Statistics; Social Policy

This is a project by Suzie Ballatyne and myself based on the Household Survey, which enabled us to look at some of the relationships between health and economic status.

Executive Summary

A preliminary account of the research program is
Economic Status and Health Status Project

Two papers which report some of the findings are
Validation and the Health and Household Economy Project
and
Who Goes to the Doctor?

The final report, The Economic and Health Status of Households is available on request. Its Executive Summary is on this website, and so is Chapter 6,
Choosing Household Equivalence Indexes

Index of Distributional Economics
Index of Household Equivalence Scales

Taxing Harm: Modernising Alcohol Excise Duties

This entry was posted in Health, Regulation & Taxation on by .

Alcohol ‘is an article of human consumption which has a legitimate use accompanied by dangerous possibilities’ The Report of the Royal Commission on Licensing 1946

This is the executive summary of a report commissioned by the Alcohol Advisory Council: The views in this report are the author’s and may not be those of ALAC. The full report is available on The ALAC website

Different Kinds Of Countries and Cities: The Distances Between Them.

This entry was posted in Globalisation & Trade, Literature and Culture on by .

Cultures of the Commonwealth The Urban and the Rural No 9, spring 2003, p.25-35.(1)

Keywords: Globalisation & Trade; Literature and Culture;

Geoffrey Blainey titled his seminal history of Australia The Tyranny of Distance, arguing that

In understanding Australia’s history, the idea of distance may be as revealing as say Frederick Jackson Turner’s ‘frontier theory’ is in probing the history of the United States. Distance – or its enemy, efficient transport – is not simply an explanation for much that happened in Australia’s history. Once the problem of distance is understood it also becomes difficult to accept many of the prevailing interpretations of other events in Australia’s history. Distance itself may not explain why they happened, but it forces a search for new applications.(2)

He could have said the same for New Zealand. For if external distance tyrannised Australia, New Zealand was more distant – even from Australia. (The physical distance from Canberra to Wellington is roughly the same as from London to Moscow.)

Working Smarter: Is Our Workforce Skilled Enough to Compete Globally?

This entry was posted in Education, Labour Studies, Listener on by .

Listener 14 December, 2002.

Keywords: Education: Labour Studies;

Instead of the five percent downtime the manufacturer specified, the expensive German machinery was malfunctioning at four times that rate. The increasingly frustrated management called in its workers, who explained they had never had any training on the use of the machine. The German manufacturer would have been astonished. Their view is that each worker was a skilled technician who had a positive role in managing the machinery, not someone to do the jobs that the machine designers had not yet automated. Training for a new technology would have been routine.

The Air New Zealand-Qantas Merger: an Application in the Public Interest?

This entry was posted in Business & Finance on by .

Paper prepared for Debate Air New Zealand.

Keywords:Business & Finance;

Major factors in the background to the proposed merger between Air New Zealand and QANTAS are the Australian reneging on its open skies agreement with New Zealand, so that Air New Zealand does not have simple access to the Australian domestic air travel market, and the subsequent hurried – and with hindsight, foolish – purchase of Ansette Australia by Air New Zealand to obtain that access. I draw two immediate and relevant conclusions:

From Is This As Good As It Gets?

This entry was posted in Growth & Innovation on by .

Metro December 2002, p.84-93, by Gilbert Wong.

Keywords: Growth & Innovation;

An even greater challenge to the orthodoxy that the reforms were good for growth come’s from economist Brian Easton. The problem he identifies is the way the nature of the decline is perceived. While New Zealand is in 20th place 30 years after it was in sixth place, the OECD data does not show a slow and steady decline. Instead, says Easton, it shows stable growth marred by two massive drops that spike down like two steps on the graph of economic growth.

Celebrating Educational Achievement

This entry was posted in Listener on by .

New Zealand Schooling is Already in the Top Half of the OECD

Listener 30 November, 2002

Keywords: Education;

Would you believe that on the available measures New Zealand is already in the top half of the OECD as far as education goes? Nothing in this column says it could not be improved. But by failing to celebrate success we downgrade the nation’s achievement, and leave ourselves open to some quack’s dangerous medicine.

Validation and the Health and Household Economy Project

This entry was posted in Distributional Economics, Health, History of Ideas, Methodology, Philosophy, Statistics on by .

Paper to the Wellington Health Economists Group, Thursday 29 November, 2002.(1)

Keywords: Distributional Economics; Health; History of Ideas, Methodology & Philosophy; Statistics;

Introduction.

This is a brief summary of a 100 plus page report, The Economic and Health Status of Households,(2) prepared by Suzie Ballantyne and myself. The data base was the Household Economic Survey (HES). For the three year period covering 1994/5-1996/7 the HES included questions on the respondents’ recent utilisation of health services together with as a subjective assessment of each’s health status, as well as socioeconomic variables such as income and expenditure and personal characteristics.

Environment Index

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

The Green Maori (May 1990)
The Maori Broadcasting Claim: A Pakeha Economist’s Perspective (September 1990)
Evidence of Brian Easton with Respect to Te Oneroa-O-Tohe (March 1991)
Tikanga and Te Oneroa-O-Tohe (May 1991)
Fishing and the Chatham Islands (September 1993)
The Maori Geothermal Claim: A Pakeha Economist’s Perspective (September 1993)
The Political Economy of Fish (January 1997).
The Commercialisation of New Zealand Appendix to Chapter 2 (July 1997)
Tapping the Source: Should Water Rights Be Made Tradeable? (August 1997)
Is the RMA Sustainable?: the Politics of the Coase Theorem (July 1998)
The Ownership, Management, and Regulation of Water (And Wastewater) (July 1998)
Growth Rings (January 2000)
Postcard From Arabia (April 2000)
Future Directions for the Ministry for the Environment (August 2002)
Rhetoric and Iraq: Arab Brothers and Oil Sisters (October 2002)

Globalisation and the Labour Market

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

Paper for the 2002 Labour Employment and Work Conference. 21 November, 2002. (1)

Keywords: Globalisation & Trade; Labour Studies;

It is argued that globalisation was a far more potent force in the nineteenth century, than it has been in the late twentieth, for then labour was highly mobile as well as capital and goods – although it was really only European labour which was mobile. Moreover, aside from initiative, the labour which migrated probably had similar characteristics to those which stayed behind.(2)

The Borrowers: Don’t Be Too Hasty Condemning So-called Loan Sharks.

This entry was posted in Business & Finance, Listener, Macroeconomics & Money, Regulation & Taxation on by .

Listener 16 November, 2002.

Keywords: Business & Finance; Macroeconomics & Money; Regulation & Taxation;

Tamaloa wants to go back to Samoa for an aiga maliu (family funeral). With no spare cash he needs to borrow. He has no record with any core financial institution, no assets to secure a loan, only the prospect of repaying out of future earnings, which sadly are not as secure as those of the Palangi. No bank will advance him a loan, so he goes to a fringe financial institution, and ends up paying a much higher interest rate.

Economic Reforms: Index

This entry was posted in Business & Finance, Distributional Economics, Globalisation & Trade, Governance, Growth & Innovation, History of Ideas, Methodology, Philosophy, Index, Labour Studies, Macroeconomics & Money, Political Economy & History, Regulation & Taxation, Social Policy on by .

History
Sequencing (December 1983)
Freeze and Thaw
 (July 1984)
Ssh …It’s the Big ‘‘D’’ (August 1984)
Confidentially Yours (August 1984)
Devaluation!: Five Turbulent Days in 1984 and Then … (July 1985)

Economic Liberalisation: Where Do People Fit In?
 (May 1987)

From Run to Float: the Making of the Rogernomics Exchange Rate Policy (September 1989)
Liberalization Sequencing: The New Zealand Case (December 1989)

Towards A Political Economy of New Zealand: the Tectonics of History (October 1994)
The Wild Bunch?: An Inquiry is Needed to Restore Treasury’s Integrity (August 1996)
The Great Diversification: Ch 9 of Globalization and a Welfare State (December 1997)
The State Steps In: Michael Bassett Makes A Case for Intervention. (August 1999)
Remaking New Zealand and Australian Economic Policy by Shaun Goldfinch (August 2001)
The Treasury and the Nationbuilding State (December 2001)

Evaluation
New Zealand’s Economic Performance This is an Index
Economic and Other Ideas Behind the New Zealand Reforms
 (October 1994)
For Whom the Deal Tolls (Of Dogma and Dealers) (August 1996)
The Economic Impact of the Employment Contracts Act (October 1997)
Microeconomic Reform: The New Zealand Experience (February 1998)
Some Macroeconomics of the Employment Contracts Act (November 1998)
View From Abroad: What Do We Know about Economic Growth? (May 1999)
The Model Economist: Bryan Philpott (1921-2000) (August 2000)
Comparison with Australia: New Zealand’s Post-war Economic Growth Performance (August 2002)

The Debate
Waist Deep in the Big Muddy? (February 1991)
Friends in High Places: Rogernomic Policies Have Powerful Allies in Australia (April 1994)
Systemic Failure (December 1995)
Ignoring the Critics (February 1997)
A Permanent Revolution? (March 1997)
In the Dark: The State of Research Into the Economy is An Embarrassment (June 1997)
The New Zealand Experiment: A Model for World Structural Adjustment? (Review) (July 1997)
Out of Tune: Even the Officials Admit the Health Reforms Were Fatally Flawed. (December 1997)
Money for Jams: the Government Response to Roading Reforms is Commercialisation. (January 1998)
Reforms, Risks, and Rogernomics (March 1999)
The London Economist and the New Zealand Economy (December 2000)
Locked Out: of Free Press and Free Economics (May 2001)
A Surplus of Imitation (June 2001)
Government Spending and Growth Rates: A Methodological Debate (January-May 2002)
From Pavlova Paradise Revisited by Austin Mitchell (July 2002)
Manure and the Modern Economy: Has Economic Policy Hardly Changed? (September 2002)
From is This As Good As it Gets? (December 2002)
1999 and All That (January 2004)

Books
The Commercialisation of New Zealand (1997)
In Stormy Seas: the Post-war New Zealand Economy (Chapters 15-16) (1997)
The Whimpering of the State: Policy After MMP (1999)

Health Evaluation: Index

This entry was posted in Health, Index on by .

Theory

Economics in Healthcare Sector (June 2000).
International Guidelines for Estimating the Costs of Substance Abuse (2 Ed) (August 2001).

Examples

Prostate Economics (February 1993).
The Social Costs of Tobacco Use and Alcohol Misuse (April 1997).
Up in Smoke, Down the Drain: How Tobacco and Alcohol Abuse Cost Us $39b (June 1997).
Who Should Be Treated? Interferon-ß for Multiple Sclerosis (June 1999).
Desperate for Funds: Treating Multiple Sclerosis Raises Questions (November 1999).
Estimating the Economic Costs of Alcohol Misuse (March 2000).
Pain and Health Economics (June 2001).
Injecting Drug Use and the Projected Costs of Hepatitis C (September 2002).
Well-health and the Future of the Pharmacist (August 2003).
The Analysis of Costs and Benefits of Gambling (September 2003).
Evaluating A Trans-Tasman Agency to Regulate Therapeutic Products (December 2003)

Health Reforms: Index

This entry was posted in Health on by .

Books
The Commercialisation of New Zealand 1997
The Whimpering of the State: Policy After MMP (Chapters 10-11) 1999.

Critiques
The New Zealand Health Reforms in Context (Chapter 9 & Appendix) June 2002.

The Managerial Revolution
Systemic Failure (December 1995)
Out of Tune: Even the Officials Admit the Health Reforms Were Fatally Flawed. (December 1997)
Money for Jams: the Government Response to Roading Reforms is Commercialisation (January 1998)
Two Styles of Management (July 1999)
The Cult of the Manager: Those Who Can, Do; Those Who Cant, Become Managers (February 2000)

Details
It’s in the Blood (December 1992)
Health Disservice (April 1997)
The Seven Percent Solution: A Background to the Proposed Health Referendum (January 1998)
The Hospital Balance Sheet Crisis (July 1999)
Funding Public Health Care: How and How Much? (March 2002)
Well-health and the Future of the Pharmacist (August 2003)