Category Archives: Social Policy

Value Added

This entry was posted in Listener, Political Economy & History, Social Policy on by .

The Shift To A More Socially Responsible Economic Policy Is Also Supported by Public Opnion – With Real Political Implications.

Listener Cover Story: 25 March 2000

Keywords: Political Economy & History; Social Policy

The success of Rogernomics depended on New Zealanders changing their beliefs. Reforming economic and political institutions would not have been enough. People also had to think about governing the economy in quite different ways. The rhetoric of the reformers was that New Zealand had been a “nanny state” that did everything for its people. New circumstances and a poor economic performance (So they claimed) required a greater reliance on private enterprise and a major reduction in the range of activities of the state. New Zealanders had to reject their dependence on nanny and take greater responsibility for themselves.

Six Pack: A Brief Review Of Treasury’s Briefing

This entry was posted in Growth & Innovation, Listener, Macroeconomics & Money, Social Policy on by .

Listener 12 Feb 2000

Keywords Growth & Innovation; Macroeconomics & Money; Social Policy

Once upon a time Treasury’s briefing to the incoming government was notorious for thick volumes which set down economic prescriptions for the government with an arrogance offset by errors. However its 1999 briefing, Towards Higher Standards for New Zealanders, is more modest. Early on it states that economists’ “understanding of what generates (economic) growth is far from complete.”

Development As Freedom: a Great Book by a Great Indian Economist

This entry was posted in Growth & Innovation, History of Ideas, Methodology, Philosophy, Listener, Social Policy on by .

Listener 20 November 2000

Keywords Growth & Innovation; History of Ideas, Methodology & Philosophy; Social Policy

Nineteenth century economists tended to focus on material output, assessing how well off someone was by the amount they could consume. That notion dominates today’s economics. Pushed, an economist might say it is better to have more material goods than less or, perhaps more humbly, that economics was only good at analyzing materialism, so all the other things which make up human happiness are assumed as given, or that they correlate with material consumption. To acknowledge so would, of course, downgrade the importance of economics, and of economists, which might be no bad thing.

What Has Happened in New Zealand to Income Distribution and Poverty Levels

This entry was posted in Distributional Economics, Social Policy on by .

Social Policy for the 21st Century: Justice and Responsibility Proceedings of the 1999 National Social Policy Conference, 21-23 July, 1999. Social Policy Research Centre Reports and Proceedings, 1999.

Keywords: Distributional Economics; Social Policy;

Introduction

In a recent article, the London Economist describes the “bad point” of New Zealand’s economic reforms which began in the mid 1980s as “a big increase in inequality.”1 In fact the New Zealand economy has generally had a poor growth performance, higher unemployment, and a worrying current account deficit ever since the reforms (although price levels have been more stable). Table 1 is a comparison between the overall economic performance of the Australian, New Zealand and OECD economies since 1985. There is no doubt the New Zealand economy has done worse. 2 Why this has happened, and why the New Zealand economic performance has been inferior to the Australian one, belongs elsewhere. For this paper, The Economist’s observation emphasizes just how widespread is the view that New Zealand has a more unequal income distribution, as a result of the policy changes of the last one and a half decades. But The Economist comment gives no sense of the magnitude of the increased inequality, nor its causes, which are the focus of this paper.

The Whimpering Of the State: Policy After MMP

This entry was posted in Business & Finance, Distributional Economics, Education, Governance, Health, History of Ideas, Methodology, Philosophy, Literature and Culture, Macroeconomics & Money, Political Economy & History, Regulation & Taxation, Retirement & Savings, Social Policy on by .


Auckland University Press, 1999. 269pp.

The policy process has changed dramatically following the introduction of MMP. Fascinated by the theatre of politics, we too easily ignore the major changes in policy approaches and outcomes. Today, without an assured parliamentary majority the government has to consult over its policies rather than impose them. Along with the increasing recognition that the policies of the past have failed, the policy blitzkrieg has almost ceased and commercialisation is being shelved.

The Whimpering of the State looks at the first three MMP years with the same lively, broad -ranging and informed approach as Easton’s successful The Commercialisation of New Zealand, which described the winner-takes-all regime before 1996. Again there are case studies: health, education, science, the arts, taxation. retirement policy, and infrastructure. Policy possibilities are explored. Yet, as the title of the book suggests, any releif from the ending of Rogernomics is offset be a realistic pessimism arising from a shrewd analysis of the continuing deficiencies in New Zealand’s political and social structure. Although written for the general public, this book will also be read by politicians, policy analysts and students, and will shape policy thinking in the MMP era. Publisher’s Blurb

Globalization and a Welfare State

This entry was posted in Globalisation & Trade, Social Policy on by .

In D. Lamberton (ed) Managing the Global: Globalization, Employment and the Quality of LifeI.B. Tauris. (2002) Proceedings of a conference sponsored by the Toda Institute and the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, at the University of Sydney, 28-30 November, 1998. P.163-168.

Keywords: Globalisation & Trade; Social Policy;

Globalization challenges us with the question ‘what choice (or what control), if any, does a society open to the globalized world have over its social and cultural policy?’ A common view is that it will that international competitive pressures are so strong that it will drive every country down to the lowest common denominate of a pure market economy, with a minimum of government intervention.

In the Abstract: Will Most Of Us Have an Impoverished Retirement?

This entry was posted in Retirement & Savings, Social Policy on by .

Listener June 6, 1998.

Keywords: Social Policy;

I would like to recommend Cornell economics professor Richard Thaler’s The Winner’s Curse: Paradoxes and Anomalies of Economic Life, which describes thirteen general anomalies where the standard economic theory of individual behaviour is contradicted by the evidence. Together they present a serious challenge to the “economic rationalism” which is used to justify so much of recent economic policy. But as important as the book is, many general readers will find it difficult, for it requires a modicum of standard economic theory and/or mathematics to follow some of the intricacies of its arguments. If you can tackle this level of abstraction, do read the book. Or give it to that undergraduate economist nephew who is already obnoxiously telling you how to run your life.

You’re on Your Own: the Nanny State Becomes a Hard Taskmaster

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

Listener 14 March, 1998.

Keywords: Social Policy;

It is just a year since the Department of Social Welfare’s “Beyond Dependency” conference, memorable for the anger it generated. Charging a very high fee (near $1400) was a clear signal that the Department was not interested in a public discussion, but only the financial elite. It backed down by offering a few free places to selected people, but the perception of exclusivity remained.

Appendix to Chapter 12: Provision for Retirement

This entry was posted in Retirement & Savings, Social Policy on by .

This is an appendix to a chapter of Globalisation and Welfare State The chapter is not written.

Keywords: Social Policy;

Since the 1970s there have been various proposals for state involvement in retirement provision. Each accepts there is a role for voluntary private provision (commonly called the third tier). The differences occur over the treatment of the first and second tiers.

Chapter 10: Entitlement and Taxation

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

A chapter of Globalisation and Welfare State

Keywords: Regulation & Taxation; Social Policy;

How should social security beneficiary who has some additional income be treated? There are numerous institutional arrangements but for economic purposes the crucial question is summarized in the `effective marginal tax rate’ (EMTR). Consider a beneficiary (or indeed any other person) who obtains an extra dollar of income, perhaps from working, perhaps a return from investments or a private pension. The additional dollar may be taxed, there may be a surcharge, the benefit may be abated or treated as taxable income, some other benefit may be reduced …. The possibilities are numerous. The economist focuses on how much additional income the beneficiary has in the hand (called `disposable’ income because that is what the individual has to spend), irrespective of the institutional arrangement to reduce it. Suppose the amount is X cents (say, 60 cents). Then the EMTR is 100-X percent (e.g. 40 percent). (1)

Chapter 7: Assessing a Poverty Line

This entry was posted in Distributional Economics, Social Policy on by .

A chapter of Globalisation and Welfare State

Keywords: Distributional Economics; Social Policy;

As Chapter 3 reported, poverty has long been a phenomenon in New Zealand life. Yet in the 1970s poverty research expanded. A poverty income line was established, numbers of people below the line were calculated, some behavioral investigations were undertaken, ethnographic studies increased, and some policy measures were undertaken to reduce the incidence of poverty.

Chapter 6: Gender in the Welfare State

This entry was posted in Distributional Economics, Labour Studies, Social Policy on by .

A chapter of Globalisation and Welfare State

Keywords: Distributional Economics; Labour Studies; Social Policy;

The issue of gender excites a passion which makes dispassionate observation and analysis nigh on impossible. We all have views about how gender relations should be organized, so that any changes are welcomed or a challenged according to those views. The debate is so dominated by judgements of proper relations, it has no understanding of what is happening.

Chapter 3: the Progress Of Poverty

This entry was posted in Distributional Economics, Social Policy on by .

A chapter of Globalisation and Welfare State

Keywords: Distributional Economics; Social Policy;

Bill Sutch characterized the progress of nineteenth and early twentieth century New Zealand in a book title of Poverty and Progress (and also The Quest for Security).(1) Certainly there was poverty in that period, which was a major driving force for social and institutional change. It would be foolish to compare the hardships of those times with those of today. As we shall see in Interregnum 1, a major development in the 1970s was recognition that poverty was simply an absolute notion of hardship but a relative one, so that rising affluence did not automatically eliminate it. Yet there is much to be learned from the earlier poverty and policy debates.

Chapter 2: Welfare Based on Categories

This entry was posted in Social Policy on by .

A chapter of Globalisation and Welfare State

Keywords: Social Policy;

Gosta Espinger-Anderson characterized the New Zealand welfare state as a `”liberal” welfare state, in which means-tested assistance, or modest universal transfers or modest social-insurance plans predominate.’ (1) He put New Zealand with Australia, the United States, Canada, Ireland and the United Kingdom, in the most primitive group of the 18 nations he looked at. However his classification procedure was based solely upon entitlements to old-age pensions, sickness benefits, and unemployment insurance, and evaluated under the assumption that contributory systems were superior. Frank Castles argued that this categorization is inappropriate because it does not distinguish between those welfare states which are minimalist (most typically the United States), commonly called `residual’ welfare states, and those like New Zealand and Australia where delivery is more through the labour market and other non-social security mechanisms. (2)

Prologue: A Unique Welfare State – and a Changing One

This entry was posted in Social Policy on by .

A chapter of Globalisation and Welfare State

Keywords: Social Policy;

In a classic study of welfare states, Gosta Espinger-Anderson argued that all rich capitalist countries were welfare states, and that they could be classified into three groups. (1) He categorized New Zealand at that time (i.e. up to 1990), with Australia, in the same group as United States of America. Frank Castles argued vigorously that there are in fact four types of welfare states, because Australia and New Zealand are quite distinctive from the US and Switzerland. He called them `workers’ welfare states’. (2)

Globalization and a Welfare State

This entry was posted in Distributional Economics, Globalisation & Trade, Labour Studies, Regulation & Taxation, Social Policy on by .

Keywords: Distributional Economics; Globalisation & Trade; Labour Studies; Regulation & Taxation; Social Policy;

In 1997 I commenced writing a book Globalization and a Welfare State. I finished about three fifths of the first draft and stopped. This was partly because other matters were using my energies, but also because I felt that the book was too technical and would not find a commercial market in New Zealand. I am putting the book on the website for those people who might be interested in some aspects of its contents.

Fiscal Surplus: Social Deficit:

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Even If the Economy is Doing Well, the People May Not BeListener: 29 November, 1997.

Keywords: Regulation & Taxation; Social Policy;

The table below shows the government’s current spending on employees, goods and services. It does not include spending on transfers such as social security benefits or debt servicing. It includes spending by local government as well as central government. The most important items are health and education, but there is also spending on government administration and advice, on law and order, on the environment, on the arts and so on.

Divided We Stand: An Accord May Not Be Possible, but Progress on Retirement Poli

This entry was posted in Listener, Retirement & Savings, Social Policy on by .

Listener 15 November 1997.

Keywords: Social Policy;

That 92 percent of voters rejected the proposed Retirement Superannuation Scheme tells us just how out of touch officials are with the public. Instructed to devise the best possible scheme, they chose a privatisation of New Zealand Superannuation akin to ACT’s 1996 election manifesto proposal. Despite a massive advertising campaign, support barely exceeded the ACT election share, indicating just how ill-advised the proposal was.

Measuring Poverty: Some Problems

This entry was posted in Distributional Economics, Social Policy on by .

Social Policy Journal of New Zealand, November 1997 (9), p.171-179. (1)

Keywords: Distributional Economics; Social Policy;

While it is easy to be compassionate over the magnitude and situation of the poor, it is not in their interest for researchers to be as equally sentimental in the analysis and measurement of poverty. Estimates which are not developed rigorously may be misleading, and may be so in a way which could be used against the interests of the poor. Where an estimate of the numbers of the poor is overly generous, the resolution of reducing poverty appear excessively expensive, and may delay the facing up to the issues. Wrong assessments of the composition of the poor may result in policy targeting the wrong groups. Thus policies based on faulty data are likely to be inefficient and wasteful, and in the end to be manipulated against the interests of the poor.

Thus it is incumbent on social scientists to scrutinize the work on poverty, to ensure that it is seeking high standards of analytical rigor. A recent paper by Stephens, Waldegrave and Frater (Stephens et al, 1995 – henceforth SWF) provides a useful basis to do this, albeit some of the problems it raises appear elsewhere.