New Zealand Home Health National Conference, 2 September, Auckland Keywords: Macroeconomics & Money; Social Policy; I have been asked to present an account of the economic context in which the home health services industry will function. I am not going to talk about the rising demand for its services because of population shifts taking that…
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Why are we faring so badly when it comes to the health of our children? Listener 21 August, 2010. Keywords: Social Policy; We used to think New Zealand was the best place in the world to bring up children. Alas, this is no longer true, as the statistics in the box below show. They come…
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Commissioned Report: April 2010 Keywords: Health; Regulation & Taxation; Social Policy; Executive Summary The following is not the usual executive summary. Rather it draws out the policy implications of the known costs and benefits of gambling, thereby summarising the main report, which consists of two parts. Appendix I is a general account about how economists…
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Concluding remarks for ‘The ACC Debate: How Do We Pay for ACC?’, sponsored by the ACC Group. 15 December 2009, Auckland. Keywords: Social Policy; I am honoured to be asked to attempt to make some concluding remarks to such an interesting conference, and privileged to follow Sir Owen Woodhouse. We are so fortunate that we…
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Sue Bradford’s departure leaves a huge gap in the Greens, and Parliament. Listener: 12 December, 2009. Keywords: Regulation & Taxation; Social Policy; To work properly, the market must be “complete” – that is, all possible transactions must be able to be carried out. For example, those who invested in finance firms such as Bridgecorp should…
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Speech to Launch the Report “New Insights into the Experienced Generation” for the Hope Foundation, 30 July 2009 Keywords: Social Policy; Statistics; This report represents a further step to our understanding of ourselves as a society. Only a few decades ago we treated all New Zealanders as the same, with the implicit assumption…
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Tax, Saving Welfare and Retirement: Have We Lost our Way? Symposium, Retirement Policy and Research Centre, University of Auckland, 16 July, 2009 Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences, are usually the slaves of some defunct economist. Maynard Keynes Keywords: Distributional Economics; History of Ideas, Methodology &…
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Paper for Towards a Value Driven Public Sector Summit, 15 July, 2009. Keywords: Macroeconomics & Money; Regulation & Taxation; Social Policy; Before talking about the fiscal imperatives in the narrow sense, I want to make a couple of general remarks about the rhetoric of policy. . The first is that the need…
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Paper to the summit “Reviewing New Zealand’s Accident Compensation System” Wellington, 29 June, 2009. Keywords: Macroeconomics & Money; Social Policy; The world is facing a global financial crisis with the international system malfunctioning, as many banks – which provide the means of payment and facilitate investment – having to limit their lending…
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I was unable to address the housing paper in my end of my seminar commentary at the RBNZ Professorial Workshop on the Current Financial Crisis (17 June 2009). This covers some of the things I wanted to say. By way of background Luci Ellis, whose paper this note covers, is Head of Financial Stability at…
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Notes for an IPS Seminar 6 November, 2008. Keywords: Macroeconomics & Money; Social Policy; This One Will Be Different New Zealand is going into what seems likely to be a long recession. We dont know how long nor how deep, nor the precise events that will drive it. There is not space…
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The case involved a number of parents of disabled adult children who claimed that the Ministry of Health discriminated against them, by not paying them for services for which it would pay outside carer. For more detail see http://www.eastonbh.ac.nz/?p=1396 . My role was a very small one dealing with the costs. Keywords: Health; Social Policy;…
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The state should share its windfall from the housing boom. Listener: 19 April, 2008. Keywords: Macroeconomics & Money; Social Policy; We are not thinking clearly about the housing market. If higher interest rates could not restrain higher housing prices, why will lower ones solve the current problems? There are two major concerns, other…
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Listener: 22 March, 2008. Keywords: Social Policy; Statistics; “Incentives matter” is a routine part of economists’ thinking. Tax a commodity, its price goes up and there is an incentive to reduce consumption. Reduce the tax, the price goes down and the incentive goes the other way. But many real-life circumstances are more complex, and the…
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Chapter 3 of New Zealand, New Welfare, edited by N. Lunt, M. O’Brien & R. Stephens. (Cenage Learning, 2007) Keywords: Globalisation & Trade; Labour Studies; Social Policy; In March 1952, just two men were on the Department of Social Security’s unemployment benefit. The rules of entitlement partly determine the numbers, but those registered…
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This note was commissioned by the Sunday Star Times (5 August, 2007) Keywords: Distributional Economics; Macroeconomics & Money; Social Policy; In the year to June 2004, 3.7% of all households suffered ‘mortgage stress’ defined as having at least 40% of their disposable income being used to service their mortgage. This definition of mortgage stress…
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How our fondness for instant gratification challenges conventional economic thinking. Listener: 5 May, 2007. Keywords: Health; Social Policy; You go into the bar for a couple of drinks. The following morning you can’t remember how many you had, but your head and throat wish you had not. What intrigues an economist…
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Studies of race relations are sometimes used to bolster prejudice, not reveal the truth. Listener: 10 February, 2007. Keywords: Health; Maori; Social Policy; Don Brash’s January 2004 Orewa speech may have been a key event in New Zealand race relations. The earlier foreshore and seabed decisions had stirred a restlessness about…
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This was submitted to http://norightturn.blogspot.com/, posted 3 August, 2006. Keywords: Distributional Economics; Social Policy; Statistics; The New Zealand Living Standards 2004 report depends entirely upon its “Economic Living Standards Index” (ELSI), first used in the previous (2000) report. At that time I expressed reservations about the index. Many have not been addressed. What I do…
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In July 2006, I was approached by a team from the MSD involved in looking at past and future social issues to provide a context for social policy thinking. The following are revised notes from the 90 minute discussion. Contributors to the review are anonymous, but there was no objection to me publishing my thoughts….
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