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This unpublished paper contains figures in its full version.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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Listener: 26 April, 2012. Keywords: Growth & Innovation; Macroeconomics & Money; New Zealand has had two great economic booms – during the Liberal era from about 1895, and from about 1935 while the first Labour Government was in power. In each case, per capita GDP doubled in about a decade; each followed a depression (since…
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Listener: 17 Match, 2012. Keywords: Macroeconomics & Money; Regulation & Taxation; Eminent economist James Tobin in 1972 suggested a financial transaction tax on spot-market currency conversions. Many others have supported him. That includes people who don’t like money and think of a financial transaction tax as a sin tax. (Tobin certainly did not. He was…
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Presentation to the Golden Bay U3A, 6 March, 2012. Keywords: History of Ideas, Methodology & Philosophy; Macroeconomics & Money; This presentation was based upon a Spirited Conversation given at Nelson 24 August, 2011. The latest version of the paper is at http://www.eastonbh.ac.nz/?p=1524
Listener: 3 March 2012. Keywords: Macroeconomics & Money; Regulation & Taxation; Forecasts for the New Zealand economy have been wound back since last year. Given the deteriorating state of the world economy, they will probably be wound back even further. And that’s going to make it even harder for the Government to meet its election…
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An appendix for Not in Narrow Seas: New Zealand History from an Economic Perspective The work was funded by a grant from the Reserve Bank of New Zealand which is not responsible for any errors or interpretations. A version was presented to an RBNZ seminar on 1 March 2012. Keywords: Macroeconomics & Money; Political Economy…
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Paper to the Australia and Pacific Economic and Business History Conference, 16-18 February, Canberra. Was broadly similar to a July, 2011 paper. http://www.eastonbh.ac.nz/?p=1515. Keywords: Growth & Innovation; Macroeconomics & Money; Political Economy & History;