Category Archives: Growth & Innovation

New Zealand’s Post-war Economic Growth Performance: Comparison with the OECD

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Note: This is the first of a series of papers. The next two planned have secondary titles of ‘Comparison with Australia’ and ‘Productivity and Employment’

Keywords: Growth & Innovation

In Stormy Seas: The Post-War New Zealand Economy still contains the most extensive account of New Zealand’s post-war economic performance, despite being published some five years ago.(1) Since then the OECD has published a new data base. This note updates In Stormy Seas using that data base. It does not identify any new insights, confirming that the book’s analysis is reasonably robust to the data base, although it suggests the possibility of a slightly different account of the early 1970s. The paper concludes with some assessment of New Zealand’s economic prospects.

Innovation and Growth in Nelson

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Presentation to Commerce Nelson’s ‘Innovation Forum 2002′, 26 June.

Keywords: Growth & Innovation

It is indicative of the mood of the country that I have been attending more regional economic seminars in the last year or so, than I did in all of the 1990s. It probably represents both the government encouraging regions to develop themselves, and a sign of growing confidence in the overall economic direction. …

Science and Nationbuilding

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Revised paper presented to the Rotorua Branch of the Royal Society of New Zealand, 1 May 2002

Keywords Growth & Innovation; Political Economy & History

The Nationbuilders is a book about the economic social and cultural development of New Zealand from 1932 to 1984 when a group of visionary New Zealanders developed the nation. The story is told through a set of biographical essays, but while some have read the chapters separately for the individual stories, in fact the book has a series of themes, which the lives illustrate.

Economic Directions: What Does the Government Think It’s Doing?

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Listener 12 January, 2002.

Keywords Growth & Innovation; Macroeconomics & Money; Social Policy

A government needs a policy framework to coordinate its various decisions, and give it, its supporters and commentators a sense where it is going. The Labour-Alliance government has not announced one. If it did, what would it look like?

Auckland in a Globalised World

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Presentation to the Sustainable Auckland Congress, 18-21 September 2001, published in The Proceedings of the Sustainable Auckland Congress. (Edited by M. Daly, B. Hill, L. Lucas, J. Salinger, & P. Spoonley, and published by the Sustainable Auckland Trust.)

Keywords Globalisation & Trade; Growth & Innovation

I want to begin with affirming one element of my basic framework. The dominant single feature of New Zealand over the last two centuries has been its ongoing interaction with the rest of the world. Unless one understands that principle, New Zealand’s history makes no sense. Unless one uses the principle one can neither understand the future, nor meet its challenge. Insulationist policies – either practically or indirectly by ignoring the principle are bound to fail.

The Knowledge Ripple: Where Were the Academics?

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Listener 1 September, 2001

Keywords: Growth & Innovation

The 1928 National Industrial Conference was the first of a long line of national conferences to address the economic problems of the day. Initiated by Prime Minister Gordon Coates, the 64 delegates included the businessmen, representatives of commercial groups, unionists and civil servants of the day. ….

Global Players: The Secret Of Some New Zealand Businesses’ Success.

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Listener 4 August 2001

Keywords Business & Finance; Growth & Innovation

Despite being used as a text book in some business schools in the 1990s, Theory K: The Key to Excellence in New Zealand Management was always a bit of a joke, for the crash of October 1987 put an end to some of its best examples of ‘excellent’ New Zealand businesses. The book devotes most space to Equiticorp (although a number of other did-not-survives were also praised). One is left wondering how a firm founded only two years before the book was published could be given such prominence. (You will find part of the answer in Ollie Newman’s “Lost Property”, which explains how public relations had a key role in gulling the investor public. )

Twenty to Ten: the Emptiness Of the Latest Economic Slogan.

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Listener 7 July, 2001.

Keywords Growth & Innovation

Chatham House rules applied, so I can only tell you there was considerable derision in a meeting of top economists when the slogan of New Zealand aiming to be tenth in the OECD was mentioned. Many such slogans float around our public debate, driven by dogma and lobbying interests. But this one has a quantifiable meaning so it can be assessed. The point of the following is not to overwhelm you with statistics – ignore them if you like – but to try to persuade you that economics can be about analysis rather than meaningless ideological slogans.

The London Economist and the New Zealand Economy

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A response to an Economist article of 30 November 2000.

Keywords: Growth & Innovation; Macroeconomics & Money; Political Economy & History;

A summary of The Economist’s position of the New Zealand economic reforms might be:

New Zealand had to change its economic policies from at least the early 1980s. The path of the reforms was riddled with ‘blunders’ and ‘hubris’. The Economist enthusiastically supported them at the time, despite warnings of the weaknesses that the microeconomic reforms were extremist and the macroeconomic reforms faulty. The outcome has been a much poorer performance than other countries – such as Australia – which tackled the same problems with a more thoughtful, incremental and technically competent approach. This conclusion applies even ignoring the rising inequality and the social distress. Nevertheless, The Economist thinks New Zealand should continue to pursue the policies which have failed in the past. Victory is about implementing ‘right’ policies, not getting better outcomes.

Changing Policy Horses

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Should the Economic Reforms be Intensified or are New Policies in Order?
Listener 14 October, 2000

Keywords: Growth & Innovation; Macroeconomics & Money;

There is a debate going on about what to do about the economy. The loudest view is that it is the fault of the new government, and that we only have to return to the policies of the last fifteen years and everything will come right. There are three reasons why this is not very compelling. First, the Labour-Alliance government does not seem to have changed policy that much. Second, the ‘collapse’ began in early 1999 or even 1998, well before the new government took power. And third, over the fifteen years the performance of the New Zealand economy has been the worse in the rich OECD, inflation excepted. So the past policies have failed, and are unlikely to succeed in the future.

Six Pack: A Brief Review Of Treasury’s Briefing

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Listener 12 Feb 2000

Keywords Growth & Innovation; Macroeconomics & Money; Social Policy

Once upon a time Treasury’s briefing to the incoming government was notorious for thick volumes which set down economic prescriptions for the government with an arrogance offset by errors. However its 1999 briefing, Towards Higher Standards for New Zealanders, is more modest. Early on it states that economists’ “understanding of what generates (economic) growth is far from complete.”

Development As Freedom: a Great Book by a Great Indian Economist

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Listener 20 November 2000

Keywords Growth & Innovation; History of Ideas, Methodology & Philosophy; Social Policy

Nineteenth century economists tended to focus on material output, assessing how well off someone was by the amount they could consume. That notion dominates today’s economics. Pushed, an economist might say it is better to have more material goods than less or, perhaps more humbly, that economics was only good at analyzing materialism, so all the other things which make up human happiness are assumed as given, or that they correlate with material consumption. To acknowledge so would, of course, downgrade the importance of economics, and of economists, which might be no bad thing.

Picking Winners:

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To enhance economic growth the government needs to stimulate economic change.
Listener 25 September, 1999.

Keywords: Growth & Innovation;

Those who proposed the early 1990s science sector reforms knew little about scientific research or economics. Just as the innkeeper Procrustes required all guests to fit his beds exactly, commercialisation was imposed on all activities. So the DSIR was replaced with a Ministry for Research Science and Technology for policy advice, a Foundation for funding, and commercially oriented Crown Research Institutes as the state research providers. The ideologically driven reforms soon proved cumbersome and inefficient. They are now being reversed, towards where they it would have been, had pragmatism and commonsense been more prominent in the early 1990s.

The State Steps In: Michael Bassett Makes a Case for Intervention.

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Listener: 14 August, 1999.

Keywords: Governance; Growth & Innovation; Political Economy & History;

Michael Bassett’s book The State in New Zealand 1840-1984 is an assiduous, if somewhat erratic, compilation of state economic activity in New Zealand, the result of burrowing through masses of archives from government economic departments. The picture he presents, up to 1984 anyway, is that the government of New Zealand actively promoted industrial development. On more than one occasion private initiatives were failing, and the state stepped in to assist a now successful business.

Measuring New Zealand’s Economic Activity

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Report on Measuring New Zealand’s Productivity

Keywords:

Growth & Innovation;

Executive Summary

The Department of Labour commissioned this study to give further consideration of the Diewart and Lawrence output series, reported in Measuring New Zealand’s Productivity (D&L (1999), called here D&L99. This exploration data base raises two issues.