Commentary on “Forging a Kiwi Economic Identity through Economic Transformation” by Trevor Mallard, Policy Quarterly, Volume 3, No 1, 2007. Keywords: Growth & Innovation; This paper responds to the Minister’s paper by providing a context in which the government’s economic transformation agenda operates. It argues that it is not a plan but a…
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Tiny Loans Are Making A Huge Difference for Some of the World’s Poorest Peoples Listener: 6 January, 2007. Keywords: Growth & Innovation; Macroeconomics & Money; The Nobel Memorial Prize in economics was founded by the Bank of Sweden in 1979. Economists have only been tangentially involved in Alfred Nobel’s much older awards for achievements which…
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The Rugby World Cup presents a challenge to Auckland’s governance. Listener: 7 October, 2006. Keywords: Globalisation & Trade; Growth & Innovation; The Auckland economy has been performing badly over the past few decades, partly because of the policies of the 1980s and 1990s, partly because of the failure to build adequate infrastructure. But the region’s…
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Speech to the Auckland University of Technology Residential Course on Regional Development, Tatum Park, Levin, May 30. The author is an adjunct professor of the Institute for Public Policy at AUT.
Keywords: Globalisation & Trade; Growth & Innovation;
Tonight I am going to talk about what New Zealand’s Economic Transformation might look like, and some of the things which need to happen in order to accomplish it. However, I need to begin with two caveats.
This was prepared in May 2006 for a report on a Youth Labour Market Guarantee. Keywords: Education; Growth & Innovation; Labour Studies; Introduction. This paper provides an environment in which any Youth Labour Market Guarantee package must function. It covers the Government Vision statement, the latest Department of Labour 2005 statement The…
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Great development economists remind us that we can oversimplify.
Listener: 22 April, 2006.
Keywords: Growth & Innovation; History of Ideas, Methodology & Philosophy;
West Indian Arthur Lewis (1915-91) shared the 1979 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences for his work in development economics. His “Lewis” model divided the economy into two sectors – (subsistence) farming and (capitalist) manufacturing. Labour shifting from the first to the second presents a very powerful growth process. I am using his model in my Marsden study on the globalisation of nations (particularly to explain Chinese economic growth). He was also an early advocate of the importance of infrastructure and education in development – views that are today’s conventional wisdom.
Can We Transform Auckland From A Gateway City to A Global One?
Listener: 8 April, 2006.
Keywords: Globalisation & Trade; Growth & Innovation;
Many cities are gateways, connecting a country or region to the rest of the world. Some are “government” cities, capitals of region or country. But some are global cities, where key global industries boost their size and vibrancy far above their dependence on gateway or government activities.
Paper to a breakfast session of New Thinking ‘06 a conference promoting New Zealand’s latest biotech, creative and technological capabilities. Lead sponsor: New Zealand Trade and Enterprise. Auckland 27 February- 2 March, 2006.
Keywords: Growth & Innovation;
David Skilling’s presentation is pessimistic because its message was known twenty and more years ago and little seems to have changed. [1] Then we had poor global connectedness with an overemphasis on resource exports. Twenty years later we still have poor global connectedness with too high a proportion of resource based exports.
Poor economic performance is the consequence of poor economic thinking
Listener 14 January, 2006.
Keywords: Growth & Innovation;
I am even gloomier than the latest report from the New Zealand Institute (NZI), Dancing with the Stars: The International Performance of the New Zealand Economy. Its sobering conclusion is that, compared to the economies we desire to emulate, our global connectedness is near the bottom.
Listener: 4 June, 2004.
Keywords: Growth & Innovation;
Earlier this year, the Ministry of Economic Development and the Treasury jointly published Economic Development Indicators 2005, with the intention to provide a basis for a public conversation about economic performance. It is part of the process by which the government is monitoring its performance closely, and reporting its findings to the public.
Fulbright New Zealand Quarterly Vol 11, no 1, February 2005, p. 3.
Keywords: Growth & Innovation; Literature and Culture;
A Fullbrighter cannot spend all his or her time reading, writing, attending lectures and formal occasions, and visiting people. My indulgence was to visit the museums and galleries which enrich such cities as Washington and Boston. Entirely for myself you understand, for there was no mention of them in my application to spend time in the US studying its economy in the context of globalisation. (Maybe the visiting is a compensation for childhood deprivation, when they closed the Canterbury Museum for what seemed an eternity.)
Notes prepared for a meeting (February 2005).
Keywords: Globalisation & Trade; Growth & Innovation;
My research is concerned with understanding the underlying process of globalisation., providing a foundation for policy and evaluation. But it is not policy focussed, nor does it aim to come to some simple conclusion about whether globalisation is ‘good’ or ‘bad’. To worry at this stage about such issues would be to damage the development of the understanding of the foundations.
Keywords: Growth & Innovation; Political Economy & History;
Those who debate the economy are challenged by theGrowth Culturereport of the Growth and Innovation Board .* The economic debate of the last four decades has largely been among the elite. This study asked what do New Zealanders think of economic growth?’
Yeah right. No wonder there is reform exhaustion. Listener: 15 January, 2005. Keywords: Growth & Innovation; Political Economy & History; For 40-odd years, economic pundits have been telling us that our economic output is growing too slowly, and that we should adopt their policies to accelerate it. Sometimes we have, but before…
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Paper for the “After Neoliberalism? New Forms of Governance in Aotearoa New Zealand” Symposium, Auckland University, December 13, 2004.
Keywords: Political Economy & History;
The policy clash in the 1980s and the 1990s was more complex than a Left-Right divide. At the very least it was tripartite. One group we might call the ‘conservatives’, many of who were on the Left, who wanted to defend the existing economic and social policies whose beginnings go back to the 1930s – making minor modifications from those which we associate with Muldoon. The concerns of the nostalgic Left has been more about human rights, foreign affairs and redistribution, than about economic policy, the main concern of this paper.
This paper was written in august 2004, for no particular purpose other than to clarify my own ideas.
Part II
Keywords: Growth & Innovation; History of Ideas, Methodology & Philosophy;
Either this kind of aggregate economics appeals or it doesn’t. Personally I belong to both schools. Robert Solow (1957)
To 1974: The Aggregate Supply-side Paradigm
The Crucial Experiment of 1974
1975 to 1981
1981 to 1986
The Grand Policy Break and Economic Modelling
The Intervention and Allocation Debate
Leaving the Institute
1986 to 1997
International Comparisons
Bryan Philpott
The Economy After 1985
Looking for the Recovery
Paradigms of New Zealand Economic Growth: A Memoir II
The Double Step Chart
After 1997
Back to Econometric Estimation
Characterising Economic Growth
Standard Growth
Turbo-growth
The Effect of Shocks
Paradigm Conflict
This paper was written in August 2004, for no particular purpose other than to clarify my own ideas.
Part I
Keywords: Growth & Innovation; History of Ideas, Methodology & Philosophy;
A Report prepared in February 2003.
Keywords: Growth & Innovation; Statistics;
Contents
Introduction
What is GDP?
Comparing GDP Through Time
Comparing GDP Between Countries: Purchasing Power Parity
How Satisfactory is the Adjustment?
Comparisons Through Time
Scaling PPP adjusted GDP
Ranking by GDP
Does GDP Measure Economic Welfare?
Alternative Measures to GDP
Notes
These notes were prepared are for a discussion in July 2004. They do not represent the interests, views, or expectations of anybody else.
Keywords: Growth & Innovation;
In February 2002, The government set down its growth and innovation strategy in Growing an Innovative New Zealand. These notes are about where it might want to do next.
Notes prepared for an informal presentation (June 2004)
Keywords: Growth & Innovation; Political Economy & History;
The ‘Growth Culture’ report of the Growth and Innovation Advisory Board (on which I am on) raises major questions about the direction of economic policy. The survey had been commissioned to understand how the public could be involved more effectively in the economic growth strategy. However their responses firmly indicated that the large majority of the public had objectives which were different from those espoused by the nation’s economic leadership.