Listener: 23 January, 1988 (Edited for length) Keywords: Distributional Economics; Regulation & Taxation; What is a flat tax on incomes? Income taxes are imposed on different categories of incomes at different rates. For instance, under the regime introduced in October 1986, at the same time the Goods and Services Tax (GST) was introduced, the first…
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Listener: 28 November, 1987 Keywords: Business & Finance; Macroeconomics & Money; Don’t ask why the share market crashed at the end of October. Rather ask why it rose in the preceding months. It is easy enough to describe sharemarket booms and busts by the phrase ‘mob psychology’, but this is not an explanation. What if…
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A paper for the New Zealand Planning Council conference, “The Distribution of Income and Wealth in New Zealand”, by Brian Easton* Keywords: Distributional Economics; Social Policy; Probably the first text I ever read as an economics undergraduate was Tjalling Koopmans’ “Three Essays on the State of Economic Science” (1957). The book contains an…
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Listener 3 October, 1987 Keywords: Distributional Economics; Social Policy; I t was meant to be a book launching, but it was really a christening. Instead of us all standing around in a bookshop, gallery or library – wine glass in hand, gossiping and complaining about the latest book awards – we commenced with…
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Listener: 13 June, 1987 Keywords: Macroeconomics & Money; The good news is that the economy is on track, performing largely as might have been expected given the liberalisation policies applied to it. But what do we mean by ‘on track’? In early 1985 I was visited by an International Monetary Fund mission on its annual…
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Wallace, L.T & R. Lattimore (eds) (1987) Rural New Zealand~ What Next? Agribusiness & Economics Research Unit, Lincoln College, Discussion Paper 109. Arguably, agriculture has been the single most important factor in shaping New Zealand’s economy. Yet the intricacies of its influence on the macroeconomy have not been fully explored. Agriculture in New Zealand…
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Listener 30 May 1987.
Keywords: Regulation & Taxation;
I imagine that somewhere in the megaliths near the Beehive there is a memorandum advocating the decriminalisation of prostitution. It probably starts with the “general principle” that there should be no artificial barriers to the entry or exit of firms to the industry in New Zealand.
Responding to the Revolution: Careers, culture and Casualties ed. A. von Tunzelmann & J. Johnston, (NZIPA, 1987), being the proceedings of the NZIPA 1987 conference. (pp.85-93)
Keywords: History of Ideas, Methodology & Philosophy; Social Policy;
Keynes remarked that practical men (he meant politicians, bureaucrats and businessmen) are but the slaves of some defunct economist, a sentiment that will have been all too apparent over the last few years. Today I want to focus upon some of these defunct economists, to show how economic analysis which is too narrowly directed results in policies for economic change which generate social costs far in excess of any ‘economic’ benefits.
Listener: 24 January, 1987 Keywords: Political Economy & History; Easton, come out in front of the class! Yes, sir. What have you done to the school playground? What have I done, sir? Yes, the playground is a total mess. Look at it! There are closed factories all around, bankrupt farms, and thousands of unemployed workers….
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Listener: 25 October, 1986 Keywords: Political Economy & History; The N.Z. Institute of Economic Research is a rather special part of the economics profession but until recently I felt unable to write about it, because between 1981 and earlier this year I was its director. However, now the ties are cut with my retirement, and…
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Listener: 26 April, 1986 Keywords: History of Ideas, Methodology & Philosophy; A number of readers have asked me to write about ‘right wing’ economics. The trouble is that ideological labels tend to be misleading. For instance, it is usual to place monetarists on the political right, but it is possible to be a leftish monetarist….
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Listener 15 February, 1986.
Keywords: Growth & Innovation; Regulation & Taxation;
The incoming Labour Government inherited an extraordinary array of government “assistance” to industry. Very often, however, assistance to one industry is to the detriment of another.
Listener 1 February, 1986.
Keywords: Growth & Innovation; Regulation & Taxation;
The study called The Structure of Industry Assistance in New Zealand: An Exploratory Analysis and known as the Syntec Report (Treasury, $10) cost the taxpayer around $100,000. That seems a good reason to write about it.
Listener 14 December, 1985.
Keywords: Distributional Economics;
“At the time of the Bengal famine (in which over one and a half million people died), in 1943, I was a young boy in Bengal. I have a harrowing memory of an end]ess procession of emaciated men, women, and children -more like skeletons than human beings -trekking in search of food. And of the roads Jittered with corpses. One recalls families of labourers, fishermen and craftsmen – all of whom had lost their means of livelihood.
Listener: 16 November, 1985 Keywords: Political Economy & History; What determines the comparative growth performances of different economies? Some will tell you that it is the amount of labour and capital together, perhaps, with the technologies that are used. Mancur Olson provides a quite different explanation in his The Rise and Fall of Nations: Economic…
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Listener:27 July 1985
Keywords: Macroeconomics & Money;
Friday
I was woken at midnight by a reporter to be told that Sir Robert Muldoon had called a snap election, As I drifted back to sleep I wondered if difficulty with the Budget was the reason for the election.
NZIER Working Paper 85/31: Draft of paper presented to the August 1985 Conference of the New Zealand Association of Economists
Listener: 22 December, 1984.
Keywords: Literature and Culture;
It is strange to recall the public outcry caused by the arrival of abstraction in painting. We now accept that form and colour are relevant and important. Abstract painting is now safe, for while it challenges us intellectually there is – as with landscapes – a distance between the picture and our human preoccupations. Where then does the painter af social realism, the commentator an our lives, fit in? Not in the boardroom or the living-room; paintings which glare at us, challenging the way we live, do. not belong in those places – do. they?
Listener: 18 August, 1984.
Keywords: Governance; Growth & Innovation;
Sir Robert said he had learned after his many years in dealing with Treasury to beware of calls for quick change, because official reports rarely paid sufficient heed to the social consequences of economic change. ” (Evening Post July 18, 1984)
Listener: 4 August, 1984
Keywords: Macroeconomics & Money;
Devaluation is one of those topics, like sexual relations, about which it is extremely difficult to have a sensible discussion in public and which, as a result, is surrounded by mystery and mysticism.