Author Archives: Brian Easton

Children and Their Parents Are the Largest Group Of the Poor.

This entry was posted in Social Policy on by .

Press release for 4th November 2002 from Wellington branch of CPAG Inc

Keywords: Social Policy;

What has long been known to those who work with families, researchers, and social commentators, is now accepted by the Ministry of Social Development. Children and their parents are the largest group of the poor. The exact numbers may remain in dispute, but the orders of magnitude are not. A high proportion of New Zealand’s children and their parents are below any reasonable poverty line.

The Bubble Bursts

This entry was posted in Globalisation & Trade, Growth & Innovation, Macroeconomics & Money on by .

Will the Recession Be So Severe That it Will Count As the ‘Millennium Depression’?
Listener 2 November, 2002.

Keywords: Globalisation & Trade; Growth & Innovation; Macroeconomics & Money;

There was increasing pessimism about the state of the world economy among the international economic commentators I admire. Those who are paid to talk up the financial markets continue to predict optimistically – so far, four of the last zero economic upturns.

The Economic and Health Status Of Households

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

Report by Brian Easton & Suzie Ballantyne, Wellington School of Medicine

Keywords: Distributional Economics ; Statistics;

This report contains the contents and executive summary only. Copies of the report (with its numerous tables) are available on request from Brian Easton. Some tables are in Validation and the Health and Household Economy Project

For an introduction to method see The Economic and Health Status Project

Contents
Executive Summary Below

Chapter 1: Introduction (page 8)
Chapter 2: Measures of Health Status (page 11)
Chapter 3: Adjusting Household Income for Housing Circumstances (page 24)
Chapter 4: The Utilisation of Health Care Services (page 35)
Chapter 5: The Determinants of Private Spending on Health Care (page 44)
Chapter 6:
Choosing Household Equivalence Indexes (page 52)
Chapter 7: The Household Distribution of Income (page 76)
Chapter 8: The Household Distribution of Income Adjusted for Housing Circumstances (page 84)
Chapter 9: The Location of Health Status in the Income Distribution (page 92)
Chapter 10: Conclusion. (page 97)

Claudio Michelini: 1940-2000

This entry was posted in Statistics on by .

From Chapter 6 of The Economic and Health Status of Households by Brian Easton and Suzie Ballantyne.

Keywords: Statistics;

The authors would like to acknowledge the significant contribution of Claudio Michelini to the development of empirically based equivalence scales in New Zealand, the topic of this chapter. Claudio had worked on the underlying theory (the preference-consistent Extended Linear Expenditure System) as a part of his postgraduate work at the University of Bristol. But in those days the computing power was insufficient to cope with the non-linear estimation that (ironically) the linear theory required.

Household Equivalence Scales

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

This is Chapter 6, written jointly with Suzie Carson, from The Health and Economic Status of Households. The appendices are not published, and the acknowledgement to Claudio Michelini has been published separately. Even so website presentational requirements have led to some changes – and perhaps infelicities. The full chapter is available from the authors.

Keywords: Distributional Economics; Statistics;

Introduction

The (disposable) income of a household has to be adjusted for the composition of the household, the numbers and ages of those who belong to it, if we want to make useful comparisons of the standard of living of different households, or to predict commonalities of their behaviour such as expenditure patterns. A simple adjustment might be to convert the income to a per capita basis, but that ignores the impact of household economies of scale and for the different characteristics of the inhabitants. It is not true that ‘two can live as cheaply as one’, but two living together are likely to spend less than if they live separately in order to attain the same standard of living. It also seems reasonable to postulate (and the research evidence supports) that different ages have different needs. Other relevant factors might be gender, employment status(for employed people may have outlays that the not-employed do not have, such as on transport to work), and marital status (since a couple may have expenditure savings relative to two singles living in the same house).

Rhetoric and Iraq: Arab Brothers and Oil Sisters.

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

Listener 19 October 2002.

Keywords: Globalisation & Trade; Political Economy & History;

It is easy to argue that US policy on Iraq is driven by its oil interests, especially since its president is from a Texan oil family who has surrounded himself with Texan oilmen. Thus the clever email about how the ‘Seven Sisters’ – the world’s great oil companies – are determining US policy which accompanies this column. If only it were so simple.

Tractatus Developmentalis Economica

This entry was posted in Growth & Innovation on by .

How New Zealand Grows: Some Propositions VERSION 3: Updated 9 December. Original 17 October. The following propositions largely reflect my research program on the New Zealand economy. It is summarised in my In Stormy Seas. Page numbers in square brackets refer to that book. There is additional material in the areas of globalisation, innovation, intra-industry…
Continue reading this entry »

New Zealand’s Economic Performance (index)

This entry was posted in Growth & Innovation, Political Economy & History on by .

The base references is the book In Stormy Seas. (1997) An extract is Capital and Technological Change: Some International Comparisons.

In early 2004 I updated much of In Stormy Seas in a long paper The Development of the New Zealand Economy. There is also a short version of the paper.

A summary of the policies which flow on from the paper is Tractatus Developmentalis Economica. (October 2002)

Money Well Spent

This entry was posted in Social Policy on by .

Review of The Ends and Means of Welfare: Coping with Economic and Social Change in Australia by Peter Saunders (Cambridge University Press, 2002).

Listener 12 October, 2002.

Keywords: Social Policy;

The dispute over the economic reforms of the late 1980s and early 1990s involved two distinct questions. The first was whether they would work. As it happened our reforms were so incompetently managed that their economics failed miserably. But second, had they succeeded, would New Zealanders have liked their outcomes? Similar reforms in Australia, implemented with less ideological fervour and more common sense, resulted in their economy growing slightly faster than the OECD. Had the New Zealand economy succeeded from 1987 like Australian one, it would have grown 1.3 percent a year faster, and it would be in the top 10 of OECD economies.

The Millennium Depression?

This entry was posted in Macroeconomics & Money on by .

A Listener Sequence

This note prepared in the first week of October 2002. Since then I have published the following columns on the state of the world economy:
The Bubble Bursts: A “Millennium Depression”? (2 November 2002)
Deflating News: Just How Sick is the World Economy? (28 June 2003)
Recovery and Deficit: Where is the US Economy Going? (February 2004)

Keywords: Macroeconomics & Money;

Towards the end of the 1990s I became increasingly concerned that the US boom was not only unsustainable, but the reversal would lead to a severe recession or even a depression. In the early 2000, I wrote in a column Self -interest Rates (27 May 2000) which said
“Any monetary authority in an economy which has its share values so dangerously out of line with reality as in the US, cannot be given a top grade. History will be less generous with Greenspan’s reputation, after the millennium depression.”
With hindsight it reads as a bon mot, but it was almost certainly a careful – if gloomy – judgement following a trip overseas. The following is a commentary on the Listener columns which addressed the world economy since then. It was written in preparation for my planned column of 2 November 2002, probably entitled Will There Be Another World Depression?.

Super-fertile Research: How Farmers and Scientists Innovate.

This entry was posted in Growth & Innovation, Listener on by .

Listener 5 October, 2002.

Keywords: Growth & Innovation;

Thirty odd years ago a Banks Peninsular farmer noticed a ewe who produced 33 lambs in 11 years. Subsequently A281, as she became inelegantly called, was handed over to the Invermay branch of what is now AgResearch, one of the Crown Research Institutes. Painstaking research by a team of New Zealand scientists determined A281 had a gene on her X chromosome which caused high fertility. But it was not until the late 1990s (with help of a Finnish scientist) they identified BMP15, usually called the ‘Inverdale’ gene, which differs from the standard gene by one neutral protein sequence being replaced by an acid protein in the DNA.

Tobacco Issues: Index

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

The Social Costs of Tobacco Use
Up in Smoke (March 1998)
The Social Costs of Tobacco Use and Alcohol Misuse (April 1997)
Up in Smoke, Down the Drain: How Tobacco Use and Alcohol Abuse Cost Us $39b (June 1997)
Economy of Substance: What We Can and Can’t Measure. (April 2001)
International Guidelines for Estimating the Costs of Substance Abuse: (2 ed) (August 2001)

The Regulation of Tobacco Use
Economic Instruments for the Regulation of Licit Drugs (November 1991)
The Economic Regulation of Tobacco Consumption in New Zealand (February 1998)
Eliminating the Tobacco Epidemic the New Zealand Experience (March 2000)

Social and History
The Gulf Between East and West (April 2000)

Family Policy: Index

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

What are Mothers Worth? (March 1979)
Fences and Ambulances: An Economist Looks at Family Policy (July 1992)
Suffer the Children (November 1993)
Approaching Family Economic Issues: Holistically or Pathologically? (October 1994)
Family Policy: Creative or Destructive? (November 1994)
The External Impact on the Family Firm (March 1996)
Review of Children of the Poor (April 1997)
Household Gods: Whatever Politicians Say, Children Interests Are Ignored (October 1997)
You’re on Your Own: the Nanny State Becomes A Hard Taskmaster (March 1998)
Poor Children (February 2001)
Is This a Healthy Budget for New Zealanders? (May 2002)
Family Policy and Family Support (September 2002)
Notes on a Commission for the Family (September 2002)
Children and their parents are the largest group of the poor (November 2002)
Treat the Kids: Why Michael Cullen Should Blow A Bit of the Budget Surplus (May 2003)
Spending the Public Growth Dividend: Why Was There So Little for Children? (May 2003)

Index of Distributional Economics

Index of The Economic and Health Status of Households Project

Also see the New Zealand Child Poverty Action Group

Notes on a Commission for the Family

This entry was posted in Social Policy on by .

There has been much discussion on the proposed Commission for the Family. On 14 September 2002, I emailed note, which was widely circulated. Here it is – a little tidied up.

Keywords: Social Policy;

I am a little nervous about a common view which expresses a lack of enthusiasm towards the proposed Commission for the Family. The fact is it is a fait accompli, as certain as anything is in politics. Thus the approach, I would advise, is how to make the Family Commission as effective as possible.

Injecting Drug Use and the Projected Costs Of Hepatitis C

This entry was posted in Health on by .

Research Report Commissioned by NZ Drug Foundation: Released 8 September 2002

Keywords Health

Executive Summary [1]

The hepatitis C virus (HCV) usually causes chronic liver disease and other morbidities in most of those infected, and death in a minority of cases. The most common means of transmission today is from injecting drug use (IDU) through the sharing needles or other injecting equipment.

Family Poverty and Family Support: a Strategy for the Next Three Years.

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

Address to the Wellington People’s Forum, 7 September 2002.

Keywords: Distributional Economics; Social Policy.

There is one main fact about poverty in New Zealand, which often gets lost behind a myriad of minor facts, which diverts us from the central issue. The consequence is that attempts to reduce poverty are at best inefficient, and at worst ineffective. That central fact is a substantial majority of the poor are children and their parents. This predominance of children and those who care for them is independent of the choice of poverty line. But to give an illustration, if we use the poverty line based on the deliberations of the 1972 Royal Commission on Social Security – the standard poverty line in the last thirty years – we find at least three-quarters of the poor are children and their parents. It is more than four fifth if we adjust for the more expensive housing that families with children face. Even those figures of 75 percent and 80 percent are under-estimates, if we note that in some households in which there are children there are adults other than their parents. The salient feature of poverty in New Zealand is that it is dominated by households with children in them.