In the unlikely event of a bank collapse, a proposed new measure would help safeguard our savings. Listener: 27 April, 2013 Keywords: Macroeconomics & Money; Banks can fail. That is not the same as a run on a bank, in which depositors withdraw funds faster than the bank can liquidate its investments, even though it…
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This index, first compiled in January 2013 and subsequently updated, is a list of article on the website which have a substantial content about earthquakes and other natural calamities. They were not a focus until the Canterbury Earthquakes, which I began writing about as “Listener” columns to illustrate general issues. However, they are acquiring a…
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A Government surplus means little when private sector borrowing is rampant. Listener: 30 January, 2013. A little complacency seems to have crept into the latest Government economic forecasts. In its December outlook, the Government promised to get its books into surplus in the 2014-15 year, the first time in seven years. It might just make…
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Writings on the Long Recession from October 2010 to December 2012 This is the third entry which summarises the Global Financial Crisis and its aftermath. The first index (www.eastonbh.ac.nz/?p=1351) covered the period from August 2007 to March 2009 The trigger was in the US sub-prime market crisis in August 2007, about a year before the…
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During Rugby World Cup 2011, historian and editor of online encyclopedia Te Ara Jock Phillips searched for the “real New Zealand”. He trotted around museums and other earnest alternative exhibits, often rugby-related, reporting on what the non-rugby elite thought was important.
He won the battle for the White House, but Obama’s fiscal war continues. Listener: 13 December, 2012. The day after Barack Obama was re-elected President, attention turned to America’s “fiscal cliff”, despite there being nary a reference to it in the campaign. Another reminder that elections are rarely about the real issues: recall how when…
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What we really need to do to get house prices back on track. Listener: 29 November, 2012. A friend was enthusiastic about various unorthodox money measures, such as quantitative easing and cutting the official cash rate. I asked him how they would work. He had no idea. His was the New Zealand way: “Bugger the…
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This unpublished paper contains figures in its full version. Unfortunately I can’t work out how to include them. I’ll send the figures if requested. Summary This paper derives a locus between the real exchange rate and net national savings (gross savings less gross investment). Its essence is that a rise in net savings reduces the…
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A note prepared in October 2012 Keywords: Macroeconomics & Money; Summary This paper derives a locus between the real exchange rate and net national savings (gross savings less gross investment). Its essence is that a rise in net savings reduces the real exchange rate. Conversely a rise in dis-savings increases the real…
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A Note prepared in October 2012. Keywords: Macroeconomics & Money; Regulation & Taxation; Introduction I have argued there is a critical threshold where if the fiscal deficit exceeds it public debt grows unsustainability faster than the ability of the economy to service it (usually measured by GDP). This note quantifies the threshold…
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The just-departed Reserve Bank Governor had less power than people think. Listener: 27 October, 2012. Alan Bollard, the just-retired Governor of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, is a genial man with a wry sense of humour. He is also a great public servant for whom we have much to thank. He will be best…
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Listener: 29 September, 2012. The world economy remains fragile. There may be another major economic crisis, but if not, things will continue to drift – or possibly sink. Here are some of the major known unknowns facing the world – and us. It’s hard to say much about the United States economy. The country is…
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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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St Andrew’s Study Trust lecture series: Living with Uncertainty; 4 September 2012 The notion of uncertainty – and risk, which as we shall see, is something else – is central to economics and the economies it describes. Of course there are external events which generate shocks like the Lisbon or Canterbury earthquakes. But today I…
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Seminar in conjunction with the Business, Economics and Accounting History Network (BEAN) 13 July, 2012. The presentation was based upon an earlier seminar The Course of Prices: 1860 to Today (http://www.eastonbh.ac.nz/?p=1639)
Listener: 23 June, 2012 Keywords: Education; Macroeconomics & Money; Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine opens with a description of the American neo-liberals using Cyclone Katrina’s devastation of New Orleans as a chance to replace the city’s public school system with charter schools. This is but one of the book’s examples of their seizing opportunities following…
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Listener: 9 June, 2012. Keywords: Macroeconomics & Money; The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity Despite the media extravaganza that still surrounds them, government Budgets are no longer the major economic statement of the year. The Government now has so many opportunities at…
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Submitted to ‘New Zealand Herald’ but mot published. Keywords: Governance; Macroeconomics & Money; Could New Zealand have a financial crisis like the current Greek one? Anything is possible but the central government has a formidable series of institutional arrangements to reduce the probability of it happening together with prudently committed ministers of finance. History reminds…
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PROBLEMS WITH EXPERTS New Zealand Books, Winter 2012, p.9. Keywords: Macroeconomics & Money; Regulation & Taxation; The New Zealand Economy: An Introduction by Ralph Lattimore & Shamubeel Eaqub (AUP) 170pp. $34.99. ISBN: 978-1-869404-89-5 The New Zealand Tax System: New Zealand Taxes in Comparative Perspective by Rob Salmond (Institute of Policy Studies) 129pp. $30.00. ISBN: 978-1-877347-45-0…
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Presentation for the Wellington Branch of the NZIIA, 15 May 2012 Keywords: Globalisation & Trade; Macroeconomics & Money; Next week, the government will present its annual budget to parliament. There will be a lot more media space given to it than – say – to this paper, but its significance is much less than is…
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