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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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: 26 April, 2012. Keywords: Growth & Innovation; Macroeconomics & Money; New Zealand has had two great economic booms – during the Liberal era from about 1895, and from about 1935 while the first Labour Government was in power. In each case, per capita GDP doubled in about a decade; each followed a depression (since…
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Listener: 18 February, 2012. Keywords: Growth & Innovation; Last century when we had ministers of regional development, the policy seemed to be to have greater economic growth in the regions than in the country overall. But these days, a greater emphasis goes on concentrating economic activity in Auckland. This change reflects the realisation that viable…
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Paper to the Australia and Pacific Economic and Business History Conference, 16-18 February, Canberra. Was broadly similar to a July, 2011 paper. http://www.eastonbh.ac.nz/?p=1515. Keywords: Growth & Innovation; Macroeconomics & Money; Political Economy & History;
Listener: 3 September, 2011. Keywords: Growth & Innovation; Does New Zealand deserve the Rugby World Cup? No, I am not concerned about who wins it; I hope the best team wins, and you know who that is. But do we deserve to be hosts? Compare our feeble efforts with other big tournaments whose hosts deliberately…
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Paper to Treasury Seminar: 26 July, 2011. Keywords: Growth & Innovation; Macroeconomics & Money; Political Economy & History; Introduction I am writing a history of New Zealand from an economic perspective. Thankyou for the opportunity to present some of its material; it may have a contemporary relevance. I want particularly to thank John Whitehead, who…
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Keywords: Growth & Innovation; History of Ideas, Methodology & Philosophy; Political Economy & History; The Asia New Zealand Foundation kindly made a grant to enable me to visit India. Here are the columns I wrote: A CLASH OF TITANS (22 January, 2011) http://www.eastonbh.ac.nz/?p=1416 GOD’S OTHER COUNTRY (19 February, 2011) http://www.eastonbh.ac.nz/?p=1435 INDIA’S UNMET DOMESTIC DEVELOPMENT NEEDS…
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India is a country of the past, but it is also a country of the future. Listener: 25 June, 2011. Keywords: Growth & Innovation; History of Ideas, Methodology & Philosophy; Political Economy & History; Many New Zealanders find India mysterious, for we don’t have much to do with it – unfortunately it is just out…
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This was a think-piece which underpins the Listener column of December 11, 2010.. Keywords: Growth & Innovation; Political Economy & History; This note is a chain of reasoning, rather than an essay or chapter with a conclusion. Although it may shed light on some contemporary issues discussed in the final paragraphs, the paper arose out…
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Cheese as a metaphor for the New Zealand economy. Listener: 11 December, 2010. Keywords: Growth & Innovation; Political Economy & History; Our first cheese was probably made shortly after Samuel Marsden brought cows to New Zealand. For most of the 19th century, cheese was made on farms for local supply. Before export refrigeration, which began…
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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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Business Herald, 26 March 2010. Keywords: Growth & Innovation; While accelerating the rate of GDP – even catching up with Australia – may be an official aspiration it is not simply a matter of trebling productivity as one businessman airily explained to me; he changed the topic when I asked how his firm is going…
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If you wanted to close the gap with Australia, wouldn’t you look at why the gap exists? Listener: 6 March, 2010. Keywords: Growth & Innovation; A meta-analysis brings together all the existing research studies, pooling their conclusions to get an overall one that is more precise and revealing than the individual studies. John Hattie, professor…
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Our glut of overseas borrowing is like a disease eating away at the economy. Listener: 24 October, 2009. Keywords: Growth & Innovation; Macroeconomics & Money; If a large highly productive foreign-exchange-earning sector emerged, it would squeeze the existing tradeable sector: exporters, and industries that compete with imports. Not only would it earn foreign exchange more…
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Notes for Seminar 22 September, 2009. Keywords: Globalisation & Trade; Growth & Innovation; While there is much talk about New Zealand catching up with Australia in per capita GDP terms there is not a lot of careful economic analysis. The accompanying graph shows the record over the last forty odd years. In 1967…
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Unfortunately, there’s no magic bus to accelerate us to Australian levels of income. Listener: 15 August, 2009. Keywords: Growth & Innovation; Sometime in the 1960s, New Zealand economic growth went through a “climacteric”, a point when the growth rate started slowing down. Think of it like driving your car up a hill. Once it starts…
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There are at least three good reasons that the restructuring of our largest city will fail. Listener: 25 July, 2009. Keywords: Governance; Growth & Innovation; Author Bruce Jesson once said New Zealand was a “hollow society”. He meant that although we had a central government and individuals, the social institutions between them…
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Paper to the 50th Anniversary Conference of the New Zealand Association of Economists: 1 July, 2009: Wellington. Keywords: Growth & Innovation; History of Ideas, Methodology & Philosophy; Statistics; This paper looks only at the first 25 years of the New Zealand research program on economic growth. It focuses on the empirical analysis but refers…
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If it weren’t for good old chemistry, where would New Zealand be? Listener: 24 January, 2009 A background to this column is ‘My (Almost) Chemical Career’ at http://www.eastonbh.ac.nz/?p=1541 Keywords: Education; Growth & Innovation; I almost became a chemist. In the upper forms at Christchurch Boys’ High School I had an inspiring chemistry teacher, Alan Wooff….
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