Canterbury and Globalisation
Overheads for Environment Canterbury Seminar 13 March 2002
Keywords: Growth & Innovation
Author Archives: Brian Easton
Of Roast Pork: Treasury Debates the Economy
Listener 9 March, 2002.
Keywords: Growth & Innovation;
Just before Christmas the Treasury released seven papers on the ‘economic transformation’, the government’s term for where it wants the economy to go. The papers are individually authored, and do not represent the Treasury view. Indeed the Treasury has not yet got one. …
The Macroeconomics Of the Superannuation Fund
This was a note I prepared: 24 February 2002.
Keywords: Macroeconomics & Money; Social Policy;
Unfortunately the debate on the superannuation fund established by the Labour-Alliance Government in 2001 has largely ignored its macroeconomic effects. This paper takes the orthodox position that a government has to manage its fiscal position, including its deficit or surplus. There is no necessary rule – such as that propounded by the US right – that sets an a priori level for the fiscal position – such as the government should be in exact balance.
Terrorism and the WTO: The Importance Of the Rule Of Law
Listener 23 February 2002
Keywords Globalisation & Trade; Political Economy & History
I fear the terrorists have won. Oh sure, they may all be eventually eliminated by the efforts of the Western Alliance, but another generation will rise, who will have had confirmed that the methods of bullies and thugs are justified. …
Mind Your I’s and Q’s
Book Review of Capitalism and Social Progress: the Future of Society in A Global Economy, by Phillip Brown & Hugh Lauder (Palgrave, $67.95)
Listener 16 February, 2002.
Keywords Political Economy & History; Labour Studies
The book recalls ‘in the aftermath of the Second World War the state emerged with a new mandate to create greater economic security and opportunity, where all would see their slice of the cake increase even if some were getting more than others.’ It was a ‘“Golden era” of western capitalism … built on “walled” economies of massed-produced goods and services which offered a decent family wage to low-skilled workers. … Much of the prosperity in this period depended on a political settlement between the state, employers and workers.’
The Other Side Of the Ditch Cartoon Exhibition
Notes for Panel Discussion, National Library, 14 February, 2002.
Keywords: Globalisation & Trade; Literature and Culture;
The superficial relationship between Australia and New Zealand was captured by last night’s Evening Post article ‘Why do We Hate Australia?’. The short answer is, of course, if the ‘we’ refers to New Zealanders, that we dont hate Australians – we have a complicated relationship with them which is similar to a couple of siblings living with one another in the same unfashionable corner of a city.
Dont Cry for Us Argentina
Listener 9 February 2002.
Keywords: Globalisation & Trade; Macroeconomics & Money
Street demonstrations and the fall of four presidents in a fortnight tell us something is desperately wrong with the Argentine economy (which, with 56 million people, is the world’s 17th largest economy on some measures). It is a century since the expression ‘as rich as an Argentinian’ was in vogue, and many things have gone wrong since. But the precipitant of the recent crisis was the ‘currency union’ with the United States. The Argentinians had abandoned an independent currency and locked their peso to the US dollar. This ‘dollarisation’ is much stronger than pegging the exchange rate, as occurred in New Zealand before 1984. In a currency union there is a common currency – in effect the US dollar was the Argentinian currency, although they used a ‘currency board’ so that while there was a local currency, the ‘peso’, all financial contracts were effectively written in US dollars. The arrangement has the advantage of price stability if prices in the primary currency (the US dollar) are stable.
Gambling in New Zealand: an Economic Overview
Draft Chapter in Bruce Curtis (ed), Gambling in New Zealand (Dunmore Press, 2002) Chapter 3, p.45-58.
Keywords Regulation & Taxation
While the practice in New Zealand is to define the gambling industry as that which the Department of Internal Affairs is involved with – including casinos, the TAB, gaming machines, the Lotteries Commission and a host of raffles and housie evenings – it is not immediately obvious why the share market or the insurance industry should be excluded.(1) Both involve the purchase of entitlements with uncertain outcomes, and each involves some of the regulatory problems of ensuring the purchase being honestly managed. Moreover, much of the gambling industry uses the terms such as ‘investment’ with the implication that, say, backing a geegee is not very different from investing in GG Corp. However this chapter focuses on the DIA defined industry, perhaps because it is seen as recreational compared to insurance and equity investment, although their regulatory lessons will not be ignored.
Being and Doing
The Tricky Economics of Creating a Better Quality of Life
Listener 26 January, 2002.
Keywords History of Ideas, Methodology & Philosophy
The life expectancy of someone living in Western Europe or North America was about 45 years in 1900. Today it is closer to 80 years. The increased longevity reduces the material standard of living (measured by GDP* or consumption per capita), since people are now retiring for far longer. Is the increased life expectancy a good thing? If we were to execute everyone over 65 years of age, we would raise the GDP per capita figure by about the same as the increase since 1981. Why dont we?
Government Spending and Growth Rates: a Methodological Debate
The following is a sequence of letters in “The Independent” in early 2002. I have not got the letters being criticised, but the readers should be able to infer much of what was in them. I have tried to bring my text in line with “The Independent’s” (sensitive) subbing.
Keywords: Social Policy; Growth & Innovation;
Economic Directions: What Does the Government Think It’s Doing?
Listener 12 January, 2002.
Keywords Growth & Innovation; Macroeconomics & Money; Social Policy
A government needs a policy framework to coordinate its various decisions, and give it, its supporters and commentators a sense where it is going. The Labour-Alliance government has not announced one. If it did, what would it look like?
Singing ‘Jerusalem’ in New Zealand
Music in the Air Summer 2002, p.13-14.
Keywords Literature; Political Economy & History.
I loved singing ‘Jerusalem’ in the full voice of my school assembly – especially the militancy and optimism of the last two verses – so much so that on the day I left I asked that it be sung for a last time.
Some Auld Acquaintances
Adam Smith, Robbie Burns and Enlightenment
Listener 29 December, 2001.
Keywords History of Ideas, Methodology & Philosophy
Adam Smith (1723-1790) was the first great economist. The political right promenades him as one of their own, but in a recent book Economic Sentiments, Emma Rothschild argues that he was originally a radical. However, shortly after his death censorious decisions in the courts led his followers to reinterpret him in a more conservative manner. (Rothschild dedicates the book to her husband, Nobel prize-winning economist Amartya Sen, who is obviously influenced by her work.)
Notes on Sutch and UNICEF
The following is an attempt to write down what seems to be known about Sutch and the saving of UNICEF. This was a note which backgrounds pages 133-135 of The Nationbuilders. It was finalised 22 December 2001.
Keywords: Political Economy & History;
Sutch at the United Nations
In the mid 1950s, Sutch wrote
“I was New Zealand delegate for three years on the Economic and Social Commission of the United Nationsand was Chairman of the United Nations Social Commission in 1948/49, Chairman of the Board of Inquiry into the United Nations Staff conditions in 1949, Chairman of the Executive Board of the United Nation’s Children’s Fund in 1950 and Chairman of the UNICEF Administration and Budgeting Committee and Committee on Fund raising from 1948 to 1950.”
Peaches, Lemons, and Elephants: the 2001 Nobel Economics Prize
Listener 15 December, 2001.
Keywords History of Ideas, Methodology & Philosophy
Prizes for economic achievement are so idiosyncratically given out, that occasionally they get awarded for excellence. This year’s Nobel Prize went to economics to George Akerloff, Michael Spence and Joe Stiglitz, for their investigations into what happens when there is asymmetry of information in market transactions, and the buyers and sellers know different things about the purchased. Their studies show markets do not always function smoothly. For instance, the seller of a second hand car is likely to know more about its defects than buyers, who are therefore suspicious that anything being offered. (Why sell a good car?) Akerloff’s classic 1970 paper ‘The Market for Lemons’ showed how the outcome could be less than efficient. Noone will trade peaches, because buyers suspect them of being lemons.
The Treasury and the Nationbuilding State
Revised Paper for the 2001 Conference of the New Zealand Historical Association, December [1]
Keywords: Governance; Political Economy & History
My just published The Nationbuilders is an account of the creation and implementation of the idea of using the state to develop a nation, especially the national economy, but also in a number of other areas such as cultural policy and the environment. The story is told through a series of biographies of New Zealanders who were closely involved in nationbuilding. While I hope the book is a contribution to New Zealand biography, the book’s structure was the best way I could think of presenting the idea of nationbuilding for a general New Zealand audience. Among the alternative approaches would have been a rather dreary academic account of the origins and development of the idea, which would however have had the merit of being able to draw more directly on parallel developments in other countries. Another approach would have been to tell the story through institutions rather than people. Today’s paper is an example of this approach, for it looks at the central role of the Treasury in nationbuilding period, taking material from the book and presenting it a different way. In doing so it sharpens some of the themes, and allows the relating of the Treasury story to some the issues it faces today, reminding us that an understanding of the past can help understand the future.
Gloomy Days: What if Japan and the US Stagnate?
Listener 1 December, 2001.
Keywords: Macroeconomics & Money
As the chief economist of the OECD recently explained ‘even without further adverse developments, [I expect] an immediate slump and then global stagnation probably until late next year’. He went on to say he ‘is probably optimistic’. The pessimism arises from the splutterings of the three great motors of the postwar economy.
Nationbuilding and the Textured Society
The Bruce Jesson Memorial Lecture 2001.
This is a revised version of the paper presented on Tuesday 23 October.
Keywords: History of Ideas, Methodology & Philosophy; Labour Studies; Political Economy & History
I did not know Bruce Jesson as well as many of you in the audience, although I may have known him longer, for we went to the same high school. Bruce was in my younger brother’s class, so I only just knew him then. While I have a memory of him gawky in the dreary school gray, it may be this is re-created because we all looked awkward in the uniform, so it is easy to imagine with hindsight. We did not overlap at university, but I recall being stunned by the occasion in 1966 when Bruce and some friends burnt a Union Jack in front of the governor-general, asking why we were upset about damaging a foreign flag, We were already refusing to stand up in the cinema for ‘God Save the Queen’, but that protest lifted the level of analysis, challenging us to think more deeply about what being a New Zealander really meant. However, it was not really until the 1970s I began to link with Bruce, first by reading his wonderful journal, The Republican , and later visiting him in Auckland.
Elsie Locke: 1912-2001.
A revised version of a paper presented to the Friends of Turnbull Library, November 22, 2001
Keywords Political Economy & History;
Towards the end of her life, Elsie Locke asked me – ‘insisted ‘would be a better word. – to reread her prize winning essay ‘Looking for Answers’, published in Landfall of 1958. She was, I think, looking back over her long and productive life, and was reflecting on her period in the Communist Party from 1932 to 1956 which the essay covered. This essay is a response to Elsie’s request.
Who’s Hugh
Review of BATTLE OF THE TITANS: Sir Ronald Trotter, Hugh Fletcher and the Rise and Fall of Fletcher Challenge Bruce Wallace (Penguin $34.95)
Listener 17 November 2001.
Keywords Business & Finance; Political Economy & History
In 1908, James Fletcher, a 22 year old Scot arrived in New Zealand with ‘a few pounds in his pocket’ and carpenter skills which he used to found a building company which expanded into Fletcher Holdings. By 1955, his son, also James, persuaded father and the New Zealand government that not only should Fletchers build the huge pulp and paper factory at Kawerau, but it should own part of it. In 1981, Hugh Fletcher, the son of the son, amalgamated Fletcher Holdings, Tasman Pulp and Paper, and the sprawling Challenge Corporation to form Fletcher Challenge, the biggest New Zealand business amounting at the time to almost a tenth of the capitalisation of the New Zealand share market.