Modern trade is seldom as simple as importing or exporting from A to B. Listener: 31 October, 2013. Keywords: Globalisation & Trade; Your jacket label may say “made in China” but as likely as not the garment is only assembled there. Half the value of a typical Chinese export is imported. The…
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We must remember the lesson of the 1960s and ensure the diversity of our exports and markets. Listener: 22 August, 2013. Keywords: Globalisation & Trade; Growth & Innovation; Political Economy & History; We learnt from the Great Depression of the 1930s that New Zealand was over-dependent on a few exports – wool,…
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In the new partnerships New Zealand is joining, we need to maintain strong bottom lines. Listener: 25 July, 2013 Keywords: Globalisation & Trade; Southeast Asia was not a stable region in the 1960s, not least because of the conflict in Vietnam. In 1967, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand came…
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This paper was presented to the Curtin Sarawak Research Institute at Curtin University, Sarawak (Miri campus), 22 March, 2013. (And earlier version was presented to a politics class at Victoria University of Wellington). The Power Points are available on request. Keywords: Globalisation & Trade I am going to talk about globalisation. I am not using…
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Listener: 29 September, 2012. The world economy remains fragile. There may be another major economic crisis, but if not, things will continue to drift – or possibly sink. Here are some of the major known unknowns facing the world – and us. It’s hard to say much about the United States economy. The country is…
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A note prepared for discussion in September 2012. Keywords: Business & Finance; Distributional Economics; Globalisation & Trade; Growth & Innovation; Macroeconomics & Money; What is the Purpose of the Economy? * The purpose of the New Zealand economy is to maintain and increase the wellbeing of all New Zealanders. It is neither the…
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Listener: 1 September 1, 2012 New Zealand ran out of farmland in the mid-1950s. Of course, it has always been limited, but the opportunities to create new farms ran out and the existing ones were getting bigger, so the job opportunities on them did not increase. Countries short of farmland used to acquire more by…
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Presentation for the Wellington Branch of the NZIIA, 15 May 2012 Keywords: Globalisation & Trade; Macroeconomics & Money; Next week, the government will present its annual budget to parliament. There will be a lot more media space given to it than – say – to this paper, but its significance is much less than is…
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Paper to NZIIA Seminar ‘Addressing the Global Agenda’, 20 October 2011 Keywords: Globalisation & Trade; My message today is both simple and troubling.[1] The simple version is that the unipolar world is coming to an end, and is being replaced by a multipolar one. The change reflects a new phase in the globalisation of the…
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The Reserve Bank’s cobbled measures got us through the 2008 crisis Listener: 23 July, 2011. Keywords: Globalisation & Trade; Political Economy & History; 1878: While Julius Vogel was on a ship to London, the City Bank of Glasgow crashed. The London money market – the financial centre of the world – plunged. Although we were…
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Some Preparatory Notes: ultimately not used. Keywords: Globalisation & Trade; Macroeconomics & Money; I am not sure you have asked the right person to be on the panel, since the topic is policy; my interests are research. So I thought I would consult an old friend, Cassandra. Fortunately I dont have to channel her; she…
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Wairarapa Institute of International Affairs: 25 May, 2011. Keywords: Globalisation & Trade; It is easy thinking about the future by projecting recent trends. But if the past is a foreign country, so is the future . Tonight I am going to paint a scenario of a world economy which will be very different from anything…
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I wrote this to set out my thinking. Keywords: Globalisation & Trade; The economics of the world food system in the twenty-first century is likely to be dramatically different from that of the twentieth. In the past, food prices fell relative to manufacturing prices, as manufacturing concentrated in a few rich (mainly North Atlantic but…
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Annual Conference of the Fair Trade Movement; 9 October 2010. Keywords: Globalisation & Trade; Economists have spent over two hundred years thinking about how markets work. They have concluded they are not fair but in general they are effective. You get a sense of this by looking at the growth of the world economy over…
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This series of “Listener” columns were an occasional series that arose out of a trip funded by the 2009 NZIER-NBR Economist of the Year Award. Keywords: Globalisation & Trade; Political Economy & History; Engaging China: http://www.eastonbh.ac.nz/?p=1220 (26 June 2010) Will China Rule the World? http://www.eastonbh.ac.nz/?p=1247 (24 July, 2010) China or Bust: http://www.eastonbh.ac.nz/?p=1257 (7 August, 2010)…
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Lessons in how to use an economic surplus. Listener: 2 October, 2010. Keywords: Globalisation & Trade; Political Economy & History; More than one tourist has asked how much it cost to build Beijing’s Forbidden City, a complex of 980 surviving buildings covering three-quarters of a hectare. Better to ignore the monetary cost and think about…
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For the 131st AGM of the New Zealand Manufacturers and Exporters Association, 13 September, 2001 in Christchurch. (Revised) Keywords: Business & Finance; Globalisation and Trade; Growth & Innovation; This presentation takes place barely a week after the Great Canterbury Earthquake. It is a tribute to the fortitude of those who are here and their ancestors…
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Selling products around the world is much more complicated than it once seemed. Listener: 4 September, 2010 Keywords: Business & Finance; Globalisation & Trade; There is no problem understanding why Fonterra exports milk products to China. New Zealand is a very efficient producer of milk, and it sells its large surplus offshore. But why does…
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Spectacular Growth May Be Masking Unstable Foundations. Listener, 7 August, 2010. Keywords: Globalisation & Trade; Political Economy & History; The question was asked aggressively, and came from the Australian-Chinese businessman as we sat down for lunch: “Is there a bubble?” I avoided a direct answer; I had only briefly visited China, but I knew what…
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Listener: 24 July, 2010 Keywords: Globalisation & Trade; For most of the world’s history, economic activity was determined by population. Inequality between regions did not happen much, because any rise in incomes was checked by a Malthusian expansion of population. But the spectacular 19th-century industrialisation of Europe and North America concentrated economic activity there and…
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