AUT Briefing Papers May 30, 2015 Third term governments always look tired. Policies developed in opposition have been implemented (usually with more difficulty and less effect than expected), ambitions – such as exporting 40 percent of GDP – are nowhere near deliverable (and in truth, never were), unexpected issues prove tiresome and intractable and whenever…
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There is a lot of chatter about the government’s budget deficit but, politics aside, why does it matter? Rob Muldoon famously remarked that the typical New Zealander would not know a budget deficit if he or she tripped over it in the street. Knowing a little bit about it I have puzzled as to how…
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Why does the Minister of Finance say this is is hardest budget ever? The economy may be doing moderately well, but it is by no means performing outstandingly. In 1993 the New Zealand economy began to show signs of an upswing after the seven years of Rogernomics Stagnation. In a public comment I remarked that…
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Sharp movements in exchange rates often reflect sophisticated speculation. Is there much we can do about it? While the near parity of the Australian and New Zealand dollars got a lot of breathless attention recently, there was little analysis of why it was happening. Explaining the exchange rate depends upon the time horizon. In the…
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One of the biggest issues missed during the election campaign was the sustainability of National’s economic, environmental and even social policies. So what do you do if the government’s not thinking long-term? Pundit: 29 September, 2014. Keywords: Environment & Resources; Macroeconomics & Money; Political Economy & History; Social Policy; Behavioural economics is…
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A softening of the housing market, falling dairy prices and potential weakening of the Chinese economy do not bode well for New Zealand Pundit: 22 September, 2014 Keywords: Macroeconomics & Money; There were knowing smiles among economists when earlier this year John Key set the election date a couple of months early….
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If New Zealand is heading for a housing market implosion, watch what you borrow. Listener: 24 June, 2014. Keywords: Business & Finance; Macroeconomics & Money; Regulation & Taxation; When commentator Jesse Colombo in business journal Forbes said New Zealand had a housing and credit bubble, Economic Development Minister Steven Joyce shot the…
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Wellington branch, NZ Shareholders Association, 10 June 2014 Keywords: Business & Finance; Macroeconomics & Money; My topic tonight is New Zealand as a bubble economy. But I need to start with a listener warning. I am an economist, not a financial adviser – registered or unregistered. Economic theory tells us something about the context of…
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It’s election year – should the government surplus be used to a) cut taxes, b) help the poor or c) repay debt? Listener: 5 June, 2014 Keywords: Macroeconomics & Money; Just before the Budget there seemed to be a public disagreement on economic policy between Prime Minister John Key and Finance Minister…
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Keywords: Macroeconomics & Money; Political Economy & History; In the Saturday 17 May 2014 issue of “The Dominion Post Weekend” Vernon small wrote an article. “English emerges smiling from global meltdown: Finance minister one of a string of highly competent money men, New Zealand has been ‘lucky to have’.” In it he quoted me….
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If minority interests are to be met, how are they to be funded? Listener: 15 May, 2014 Keywords: Literature and Culture; Macroeconomics & Money; Except for talkback, one thinks of radio as an audience-passive medium. Radio New Zealand (RNZ) was reminded that this is not necessarily the case at an April meeting…
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Keywords: Distributional Economics; Growth & Innovation; Statistics; I have just realised that we can calculate Amartya Sen’s ‘real income’ measure for New Zealand for a 30 year period, by combining our Statistics New Zealand estimates of national income with the Ministry of Social Development estimates of household gini coefficients. This note describes how this…
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The new wave of “sharia-compliant” banks go to a lot of trouble to neither charge nor pay interest. Listener: 27 June, 2013 Keywords: Macroeconomics & Money; ‘No risk, no return” is a summary of Islamic financial principles. So their system has to work without interest. Muslims are not opposed to…
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The Austerian Economists’ Error In the battle of opinions for managing sluggish economies, rhetoric often misrepresents the research. Listener: 13 June, 2013 Keywords: History of Ideas, Methodology & Philosophy; Macroeconomics & Money; The right response to high unemployment and lethargic economic activity is to cut back government spending, according to “Austerians”, whose…
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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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