Category Archives: Growth & Innovation

Productivity Puzzle

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Everyone Assumed That Productivity Growth Would Increase with the Employments Contracts Act. But Check the Data: No Significant Change.

Listener: 27 July, 1996.

Keywords: Growth & Innovation; Labour Studies;

The non-ideological economist would have made three confident predictions about the effects of the Employment Contracts Act (ECA) introduced in May 1991. First, it would weaken the unions. True. Second, it would depress wages of low pay workers (because of the mass of unemployed with similar skills). True. Third, it would generate productivity increases (at least in the short term). False.

Poorer, but Wiser

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Listener: 17 December, 1994.

Keywords: Growth & Innovation;


This is an update on the original graph.

Many people think that our post war record has been one of continuous economic decline relative to other rich countries of the OECD. The accompanying graph tells a different story. The black lines show the volume GDP (production in constant prices) growth paths for the OECD as a whole. The top line is indexed at 1000 in 1955, the middle at 790 in 1955, and the bottom at 700. Over these three lines is superimposed the red volume GDP growth path for New Zealand.

Crises in the Cris: the Science Reforms Have Been Failed

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Listener 22 October 1994.

Keywords Governance, Growth & Innovation

We were told that the separation of scientific research funding and providing would result in better research. (The funder is the Foundation of Research, Science and Technology – FRST, pronounced “forst”; the main providers are with corporatized profit oriented Crown Research Institutes – CRIs, pronounced “crises”).

Economic and Other Ideas Behind the New Zealand Reforms

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Oxford Review of Economic Policy, vol 10, no 3. pp.78-94 ( This article benefited from comments by Keith Jackson and John Martin, and from the symposium editor Gerry Holtham,)

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

I. Introduction

From 1984 to the early 1990s New Zealand undertook a major reform of the mechanisms used to govern the economy and the public administration. These reforms are often called ‘rogernomics’, after Roger Douglas, the Minister of Finance who instigated them, and the reformers are known as ‘rogernomes’. The reforms might be called the application of “economic rationalism”, which Michael Pusey defines as the “doctrine that says that markets and prices are the only reliable means of setting a value [for public purposes] on anything, and … that markets and money can always, at least in principle, deliver better outcomes than states and bureaucracies” (Pussey 1993:14, original’s italics).

INDUSTRIAL RELATIONS FOR ECONOMIC GROWTH

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Address to the 1994 National Biennial Conference of the New Zealand Engineering Union, 13-15 May, Christchurch.   Keywords: Growth & Innovation; Labour Studies;   Today I want to discuss economic growth strategies, by looking at the vision which underpins the Employment Contracts Act (ECA), and the alternative. One of the central tenants of a good…
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Friends in High Places: Rogernomic Policies Have Powerful Allies in Australia

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Listener 23 April, 1994.

Keywords: Growth & Innovation;

Australian Michael Pusey triggered a national debate with his book Economic Rationalism in Canberra: A Nation-Building State Changes Its Mind. In it the sociology professor at the University of New South Wales argues that senior federal public servants now favour the New Right approach called economic rationalism (Australian for Rogernomics) and have abandoned the values and objectives that traditionally dominated the public service. Although economic rationalism has been around for some time, the book caused a storm.

Growth Prospects: Is Our Current Growth Rate Sustainable?

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Listener 12 March, 1994.

Keywords: Growth & Innovation;

The available indicators suggest that the New Zealand economy was growing quickly at the end of 1993, at around four percent a year. For some this is the triumphant proof of the long promised benefits of the Rogernomic economic strategy. For others the indicators are misleading (certainly, not everyone or all parts of the economy are benefiting from the growth). For myself, the new data provide a chance to re-examine the underlying state of the economy.

Curiouser and Curiouser

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Listener 29 January 1994.

Keywords: Growth & Innovation; History of Ideas, Methodology & Philosophy;

Economics is a profession where 40-year-olds usually give up serious research,proclaiming platitudes instead. But Bryan Philpott is still an active researcher, six years after retirement, His greatest love, which goes back to the 1950s when he worked for the Meat and Wool Economic Service, is the determinants of economic growth. The farm accounts series from the 1920s, which he and associates derived in the 1920s, which he and associates derived in the 1960s, is still definitive. Even more valuable is the economy-wide comprehensive database from the 1950s, filling in gaps in the official series. More recently, students under Philpott’s supervision have been extending his unique capital series back to the last century.

New Zealand Can Be Different and Better, by Wolfgang Rosenberg

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

Review published in , Vol 3, No 3, (Issue 11) Summer 1993, p.5-6.

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

Those who wish to challenge Wolfgang Rosenberg’s policy prescriptions must confront the outstanding performance of the New Zealand economy in the first part of the postwar era. In the three decades from the mid-1930s, following the recovery from the depths of the interwar depression: the economy grew as fast as – or faster than – the rest of the OECD; the rate of inflation was slightly below the average; the overseas debt was not compromising; and there was full employment, (Rosenberg puts the break point in 1975, although the last decade was not as good as the period up to 1966.)

Te Whakapakari Paapori, Ohanga O Muriwhenua

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TOWARDS AN IWI DEVELOPMENT PLAN FOR THE MURIWHENUA
Submission to the Waitangi Tribunal on behalf of the Ruunanga o Muriwhenua. The views expressed are my own, and should not be taken to reflect those of the Ruunanga, the Muriwhenua Iwi, the Maori, the Tribunal, or the Crown.) Revised 22 June 1993

Keywords: Growth & Innovation; Maori;

Introduction

1.1 This report has been commissioned to assist the Waitangi Tribunal in its deliberations on the claims of the Ruunanga o Muriwhenua, on behalf of the Muriwhenua Iwi of the Far North of New Zealand, as a part of the settlement for long standing grievances.

THE NEW INTERVENTIONISM

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Listener. March 20, 1993 Back in the 1960s, different disciplines at the University of Sussex made a commitment to work together. The more advanced social statistics course was taught to all social scientists, psychology tutorials were taken by an economist and economics students were taught by a psychometrician, To this multidisciplinary environment came a young…
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Research and Development Spending:

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A COMPARISON BETWEEN NEW ZEALAND AND OTHER OECD COUNTRIES. Review NZ Science Review, Vol 50 (1) 1993, p.24-27.

Keywords: Growth & Innovation;

Every economy faces a problem as to how much it should spend on each commodity. In the typical market the decision is made by a multitude of individual purchases. No one person decides on how much bread should be made, but in a rough and ready way, the outcome seems broadly efficient and fair (if the income distribution is fair).

The Economic Relationship Between Australia & New Zealand

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Australia-New Zealand: Aspects of a Relationship, Proceedings of the Stout Research Centre, Eighth Annual Conference, Stout Research Centre, 1991, 14pp

Keywords: Globalisation & Trade; Growth & Innovation; Political Economy & History;

The three most important characteristics for property – “position, position, position” – are not so important in international economics, as the close economic link between the United Kingdom and New Zealand for almost a century indicates. Similarly that Australia is New Zealand’s nearest neighbour does not closely link the two economies.

Waist Deep in the Big Muddy?

This entry was posted in Growth & Innovation, Labour Studies, Listener, Macroeconomics & Money, Social Policy on by .

Listener 25 February, 1991

Keywords: Growth & Innovation; Labour Studies; Macroeconomics & Money; Social Policy;

A popular folk song on US campuses in the late 1960s was Pete Seeger’s “Waist Deep in the Big Muddy”. It described how one night an army platoon attempted to ford a swamp-river. The commander said he knew where he was going. It was just a matter of pushing on. Some of his troops were less certain, but were exhorted with such phrases as “don’t be a nervous nellie” and just show a little determination”.

A Big Think About Think Big

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Listener: 17 September, 1990 Keywords: Growth & Innovation; The disruption in the Middle East has once more raised the question as to whether a group of major projects, collectively called ‘Think Big’, were in the national interest. There has been no independent and authoritative analysis, for reasons I shall explain shortly, but there are a…
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Liberalization Sequencing: the New Zealand Case

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Journal of Economic Growth Volume 4, No 1, Winter 1989-90, p.14-18.

Keywords: Growth & Innovation; Macroeconomics & Money;

The economy of New Zealand first .surged forward under the Labour government, with registered unemployment falling from around 64 thousand at the time the new government took office in July 1984 to about 50 thousand a year later. As the restructuring took effect and firms dependent upon subsidies closed down, unemployment began to increase. By the end of 1989 it was close to 150 thousand with little prospect of significant reductions.

Agriculture in New Zealand’s Economy

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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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Confidentially Yours

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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)