Is it possible to reorganise supermarkets to introduce genuine competition? Economists have a precise definition of a competitive market. It is where no firm is a price setter. That requires many small firms in a market with ease of entry and exit. Economic theory shows that such markets are beneficial for consumers. They may be…
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Productivity increases do not always generate increases in profits. We do not know when the economic boom generated by AI will be over, but the overstretched industry is increasingly looking shaky. When I last wrote about financial booms and busts, I equivocated over whether the next financial bust – there will be one, we just…
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The column focuses only on the business activities of Ron Brierley Brierley’s main impact in New Zealand was in the 1970s and early 1980s, which was a strange time for the New Zealand economy. Its business was far from dynamic; it was said that the most successful New Zealand entrepreneurs at that time were those…
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Andrew Sorkin’s new book, 1929: The Greatest Crash in Wall Street History sheds light on how financial markets work. Economists argue over how exactly the Great Depression of the early 1930s occurred. We are pretty much agreed on what happened in New Zealand – our ability to borrow internationally became very limited while the terms…
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Industrial policy is once more on the agenda of many governments. There is a long history of Industrial Policies (IP) aimed at promoting a particular sector of an economy. When Henry VIII abandoned Roman Catholicism, the practice of eating fish on Fridays lapsed. The change devastated the English fishing industry. Edward VI, Henry’s son, reinstated…
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New Zealand is a small, isolated nation and needs to design itself accordingly. We should avoid uncritically imitating larger nations. Among the news websites I read is a British daily which once a week interviews a local writer on the books they grew up reading and which influenced them. That’s fifty-odd a year; most interviews…
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Pragmatic analysis says maybe we should, but we should also consider nationalisation. We should certainly consider better regulation. An earlier column argued that we should make the government’s net worth – the value of its assets less its liabilities – more prominent in fiscal policy. Net worth is also fundamental when we are discussing whether…
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Big Corporations Are Not What We Think They Are John Kay has been widely described as ‘one of the greatest economists of our time’. He is well grounded in economic theory and has taught it. He is rich with practical experience, both as a consultant and a corporate director, which he melds shrewdly with the…
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It is said that economists know the price of everything and the value of nothing. That may be an exaggeration, but an even better response is to point out economists do know the difference. They did not at first. Classical economics thought that the price of something reflected the objective cost of producing it –…
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Can we trust the Trump cabinet to act in the public interest? Nine of Trump’s closest advisers are billionaires. Their total net worth is in excess of $US375b (providing there is not a share-market crash). In contrast, the total net worth of Trump’s first Cabinet was about $6b. (Joe Biden’s Cabinet total was about $118…
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What seemed a booming success a couple of years ago has collapsed into fraud convictions. I looked at the crash of FTX (short for ‘Futures Exchange’) in November 2022 to see whether it would impact on the financial system as a whole. Fortunately there was barely a ripple, probably because it was too small and…
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Evergrande and Country Garden – two giant Chinese property development companies – are a portent of the turbulence before us. The recent financial failures of two ginormous Chinese property companies, Evergrande and Country Garden, at various times ranked the second largest and sixth largest in China have implications for the New Zealand economy. The Evergrande…
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I was asked by a Spanish journalist the following two questions (particular with attention to a historical perspective): How likely do you see (if at all) a transition from an economy based on primary products towards an economy where digital services exports might play an important part? I would also like to ask about the…
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New Zealand’s most distinguished economist reviews New Zealand’s premier financial agony aunt Newsroom 29 April, 2021 Because economists are believed to know the mysteries of finance, I am often asked to give financial advice. I advise that I would never take the advice of an economist without paying for it; that it is never worth…
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I have been dipping into Brett Christophers’ Rentier Capitalism: Who Owns the Economy and Who Pays for It? Economists should be warned that his use of the term ‘rentier’ is ‘heterodox’ (his term). I have no difficulty with Humpty-Dumpty’s ‘When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean – neither…
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Building more houses is not going to reduce house prices much (although it will help more people to be decently housed). The inflation driver is financial speculation based on leveraged borrowing. Until that is addressed, house prices will continue to boom. Policies based on theories which do not fit the facts are not going to…
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If the Commercial Miracle of Newspapers is Over, What will Replace It? Newspapers have been a commercial miracle. For a very small outlay one got access to a surprisingly wide range of news, opinion and information. Part of the explanation was economies of scale, but the trick was that much of the industry’s revenue came…
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A recent decision by New Zealand on Air in response to the changing media technologies raises a range of issues about how the platforms are used. The announcement by New Zealand on Air that it was changing its mode of funding is a reminder of the current turmoil in the media from the convergence of…
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The economics of information shows that whatever happens, the solution our ailing newspapers to the digital revolution will not be a perfect one. An important notion in economic analysis is of a ‘public good’ (which may be a service). Not THE public good (a.k.a. the ‘common good’), which is shared and beneficial for all or…
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The government has let the housing market deteriorate with measures which are insufficient, late and ineffective. As a first step we need to identify the underlying problems. The Prime Minister’s announcement that there is nothing new about homelessness is both an example of his strengths in reassuring the public that there is never really a…
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