Category Archives: Social Policy

Working on It?

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What Use is Part-time Work If Your Benefit is Cut and You Earn Little More?

Listener: 16 September, 1995.

Mike was finishing his university degree when he was offered a part time job with one of the biggest employers in the city. He took the job, did it well, and the employer eventually gave Mike a full time job. Three years later he is still working there. Mike’s experience is not unusual. Once the young worker walked into a full time job. Today’s young start off with bits and pieces of part-time work, obtain work skills and a reputation for good work disciplines, which eventually leads on to full time work.

Anything They Can Do …

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Economic Reform is Possible Without Savaging the Welfare State

Listener: 2 September, 1995.

Keywords: Social Policy;

Prime Minister Paul Keating has an almost mythical reputation. As Treasurer (the Australian Minister of Finance) he presided over a major transformation of economic structure while the Australian economy continued to prosper. More recently he led his Labor Party into a “can’t win” election, and won it handsomely. While he is not popular because of his personal arrogance and an acerbic tongue, he can be proud of his government’s accomplishments.

Working with the Maori: Consultancy, Research, Friendship.

This entry was posted in Distributional Economics, Maori, Political Economy & History, Social Policy on by .

Seminar presentation at the NZIER, 2 August, 1995.

Keywords: Distributional Economics; Maori; Political Economy & History; Social Policy;

The seminar is the result of an invitation by the director of the NZIER, John Yeabsley, to describe some of my work with the Maori, especially in terms of the challenges I have experienced as a research economist and social statistician. The material presented here is primarily that which is on public record. Some confidential work is omitted. However while it is of interest and has been challenging, the work broadly covers the same areas as are in my public record. Some very small projects are also omitted.

The Post-war Welfare State

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Revised version of Address in the University of Auckland Winter Lecture Series, 20 June 1995, published in Social Policy Journal of New Zealand, Issue 7, December 1996, p. 17-28.[1]

The modern welfare state developed in most rich countries in the post-war era. It was a response to three major trauma. First, there was the interwar depression, in which the brutality of unconstrained capitalism generated a response of a kinder, gentler way of organizing society. Second the war itself led to upheaval in many European countries. The welfare state was seen as a means of integrating the people back into the nations struggling with the chaos of their recent past, in order to generate a degree of social cohesiveness. Third, but by no means least, industrial society was sweeping away the old forms of community provision.

The Fallacy Of the Equity Vs Efficiency Tradeoff.

This entry was posted in Distributional Economics, History of Ideas, Methodology, Philosophy, Social Policy on by .

This is an elaboration of a note I prepared in February 1995.

Keywords: History of Ideas, Methodology & Philosophy; Social Policy;

It is much easier to claim there is an equity-efficiency tradeoff, than to demonstrate that there is not, since the terms being used may have a meanings different from conventional usage, so the critic is reduced to chasing ill defined chameleon like ideas.

Family Policy: Creative or Destructive?

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Address to the 1994 St Andrews Trust for the Study of Religion and Society, What Future the Family?, November 3, 1994.

Keywords Social Policy

During the nineteenth century, three political economies – ways of organizing the economy and society – competed for New Zealand.(1) The Maori political economy, although initially successful as the indigenous people took up the challenge of the new opportunities from European contact, faded in the later part of the century as the Maori population and ownership of resources declined from war, disease, alienation of land, and loss of rangatiratanga. I shall have little more to say about the Maori, for theirs is a story which deserves more space and competence than I have here.

Approaching Family Economic Issues: Holistically or Pathologically?

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Revised version of the prepared paper for the International Year of the Family, Family Rights and Responsibilities Symposium, 14-16 October, 1994 Wellington.

Keywords Distributional Economics; Social Policy

This is a paper about families with dependent children. (1) It ignores those which only adults, including independent children, and the broader issue of extended families, including whanau and hapu. The paper is further confined to only the economic aspects of the family with dependent children.

Taxing Alcohol

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

Presentation to “Perspectives for Change”, a conference convened by the Alcohol Advisory Council of New Zealand at Ohinemutu Marae, Rotorua, 20-23 February, 1994.

Keywords: Health; Regulation & Taxation; Social Policy

Given the brevity of the time available, this paper simply states a series of propositions about using taxation as a means of regulating alcohol use. The presenter has long been an advocate of an appropriate level of tax on alcohol to limit abuse and to pay the social costs of the abuse. While reaffirming this position, the paper is directed to the thesis that taxation for this purpose is a limited policy instrument, and that other instruments will have to be increasingly used if we want to obtain the socially optimal level of alcohol consumption. This presentation summarizes a series of papers on the economic regulation of licit drugs, which are listed in the appendix. This work draws on the parallel literature on the use and abuse of tobacco, where the similarities and differences are instructive.

Suffer the Children

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

Listener 27 November, 1993.

Keywords Distributional Economics; Social Policy;

Some months ago I was invited to speak to a seminar on ‘Family Issues’ – I willingly accepted (the seminar, held last month, was a joint effort by Barnardo’ s and Birthright,reflecting the increasing co-operation between the two organisations concerned about different aspects of child needs). Although there has been a lot of amateurish work on quantitative aspects of family poverty in recent years, there are important things to be said, When I prepared my paper I found that the conclusions I had reached warranted my triple-checking the double check. Two of them were spectacular.

Fences and Ambulances: an Economist Looks at Family Policy

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

Paper for ‘The Children’s, Young Persons and their Families Act -A Review’, A Public Seminar. Palmerston North College of Education, Friday July 10, 1992

Keywords Health; Social Policy

It is a curious, if instructive, oddity that our most famous quotation about health promotion does not appear in the Heineman Dictionary of New Zealand Quotations. We talk about the need to put fences at the top of the cliff, but the thrust of our social policy is the ambulance at the bottom -although in recent years it has been more like a cardphone from which one can ring a private cab. Fences and ambulances represent quite different ways of responding to social policy problems. The more erudite might refer to holistic social policy versus pathological social policy.

Waist Deep in the Big Muddy?

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

Listener 25 February, 1991

Keywords: Growth & Innovation; Labour Studies; Macroeconomics & Money; Social Policy;

A popular folk song on US campuses in the late 1960s was Pete Seeger’s “Waist Deep in the Big Muddy”. It described how one night an army platoon attempted to ford a swamp-river. The commander said he knew where he was going. It was just a matter of pushing on. Some of his troops were less certain, but were exhorted with such phrases as “don’t be a nervous nellie” and just show a little determination”.

Market Incomes: Their Capacity to Deliver a Living Wage

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A paper for the New Zealand Planning Council conference, “The Distribution of Income and Wealth in New Zealand”, by Brian Easton*   Keywords: Distributional Economics; Social Policy;   Probably the first text I ever read as an economics undergraduate was Tjalling Koopmans’ “Three Essays on the State of Economic Science” (1957). The book contains an…
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Economic Liberalisation: Where Do People Fit In?

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

Responding to the Revolution: Careers, culture and Casualties ed. A. von Tunzelmann & J. Johnston, (NZIPA, 1987), being the proceedings of the NZIPA 1987 conference. (pp.85-93)

Keywords: History of Ideas, Methodology & Philosophy; Social Policy;

Keynes remarked that practical men (he meant politicians, bureaucrats and businessmen) are but the slaves of some defunct economist, a sentiment that will have been all too apparent over the last few years. Today I want to focus upon some of these defunct economists, to show how economic analysis which is too narrowly directed results in policies for economic change which generate social costs far in excess of any ‘economic’ benefits.

Compensating Factors

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Listener: 25 April, 1981.

Keywords: Social Policy;

One of the curiosities of the 1970s is that although it was a period of economic stagnation, a number of important innovations were made in the income maintenance area.

The most radical was the introduction of the Accident Compensation Scheme. but others were National Superannuation, the Statutory Domestic Purposes Benefit, income tax rebates for families, and changes removing some of the discrimination against women, Even curiouser, most of these changes occurred under a National Government, which is not normally thought to be especially concerned with social security.

Blood Brotherhood

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

Listener 8 March, 1980.

Keywords: Health; Social Policy;

Legislation passed in 1979 made it illegal to buy or sell human blood, except with the consent of the Minister of Health. Is this not another example of the government over-regulating life? Did not Gerald Ford, ex-president of the United States, part-pay his way through university by selling his blood? Given the miserable level of student bursaries, is the prohibition on selling human blood yet a further attempt to ensure that future New Zealand prime ministers will not have a university education?

What Are Mothers Worth?

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Listener 17 March, 1979, republished in The Listener Bedside Book 2 (1998) p.209-11.

Keywords: Social Policy;

Sentiment sings that one’s mother is worth more than all the world, but we don’t always follow our singing. Anyway, for social policy purposes we need a more hard-headed assessment of the worth of mothers.

The Economics of Children

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In April 1978 I presented this paper to the Extension Course of the Auckland Primary Principals Association. It was published in “Impact the Burden of Choice”, Volume 14 (pp.17-34). In 2014 the hard copy was converted into an electronic one. Optical Character Readers are not perfect, and Elizabeth Caffin kindly checked the preliminary text. In…
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