Category Archives: Health

Fences and Ambulances: an Economist Looks at Family Policy

This entry was posted in Health, Social Policy on by .

Paper for ‘The Children’s, Young Persons and their Families Act -A Review’, A Public Seminar. Palmerston North College of Education, Friday July 10, 1992

Keywords Health; Social Policy

It is a curious, if instructive, oddity that our most famous quotation about health promotion does not appear in the Heineman Dictionary of New Zealand Quotations. We talk about the need to put fences at the top of the cliff, but the thrust of our social policy is the ambulance at the bottom -although in recent years it has been more like a cardphone from which one can ring a private cab. Fences and ambulances represent quite different ways of responding to social policy problems. The more erudite might refer to holistic social policy versus pathological social policy.

Economic Instruments for the Regulation Of Licit Drugs

This entry was posted in Health, Regulation & Taxation on by .

Paper for the Perspectives for Change Conference, sponsored by the New Zealand Drug Foundation and the Alcohol Liquor Advisory Council, 25-27 November, 1991.

Keywords Health, Taxation & Regualtion

This paper does not pursue the ‘why’ or ‘whether’ policy issues of the additional regulation of licit drugs such as alcohol and tobacco, except insofar as that is relevant to the ‘how’ of regulation. The paper focuses on only one aspect of the how, the use of ‘economic instruments’ of regulation.

Blood Brotherhood

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Listener 8 March, 1980.

Keywords: Health; Social Policy;

Legislation passed in 1979 made it illegal to buy or sell human blood, except with the consent of the Minister of Health. Is this not another example of the government over-regulating life? Did not Gerald Ford, ex-president of the United States, part-pay his way through university by selling his blood? Given the miserable level of student bursaries, is the prohibition on selling human blood yet a further attempt to ensure that future New Zealand prime ministers will not have a university education?

The Lost Fortnight

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Listener: 11 March, 1978, republished in Economics for New Zealand Social Democrats.

Keywords: Health; Regulation & Taxation;

Note: The numbers in this column are out of date, but the sentiment remains true.

‘The trouble with New Zealand,’ he said as he leaned on the bar, ‘is that we have far too many scrounging on the state.’

I had heard it all before, and was absent-mindedly gazing at the jugs of beer in front of him. A variety of news items flitted through my mind. The traffic officer who thought half the accidents he attended involved a drunken driver. The Auckland policeman who said nights were easy while the beertanker drivers were on strike. The orthopedic surgeon whose ward is 60 per cent full of the consequences of accidents involving alcohol. The hospital which has 25 per cent of its non-geriatric beds filled with patients directly suffering from the abuse of alcohol. The 53,000 New Zealanders who are alcoholics. The half a million New Zealanders who have a close friend or relation who is a liquor addict. The loss of production from hangovers and deteriorated performance from drinking is over eight times the loss of production from industrial disputes.