Category Archives: Globalisation & Trade

New Zealand Aid Programmes – Helping the Pacific Prosper

Listener: 1 September 1, 2012 New Zealand ran out of farmland in the mid-1950s. Of course, it has always been limited, but the opportunities to create new farms ran out and the existing ones were getting bigger, so the job opportunities on them did not increase. Countries short of farmland used to acquire more by…
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The Issues New Zealand Faces: the International Context

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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Great Days in New Zealand Borrowing

The Reserve Bank’s cobbled measures got us through the 2008 crisis Listener: 23 July, 2011. Keywords: Globalisation & Trade; Political Economy & History; 1878: While Julius Vogel was on a ship to London, the City Bank of Glasgow crashed. The London money market – the financial centre of the world – plunged. Although we were…
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Sectors and Prices: Exportables and the Real Exchange Rate

Some Preparatory Notes: ultimately not used. Keywords: Globalisation & Trade; Macroeconomics & Money; I am not sure you have asked the right person to be on the panel, since the topic is policy; my interests are research. So I thought I would consult an old friend, Cassandra. Fortunately I dont have to channel her; she…
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A New Approach to Reducing Intervention on Farm Products

I wrote this to set out my thinking. Keywords: Globalisation & Trade; The economics of the world food system in the twenty-first century is likely to be dramatically different from that of the twentieth. In the past, food prices fell relative to manufacturing prices, as manufacturing concentrated in a few rich (mainly North Atlantic but…
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Thinking About China (index)

This series of “Listener” columns were an occasional series that arose out of a trip funded by the 2009 NZIER-NBR Economist of the Year Award. Keywords: Globalisation & Trade; Political Economy & History; Engaging China: http://www.eastonbh.ac.nz/?p=1220 (26 June 2010) Will China Rule the World? http://www.eastonbh.ac.nz/?p=1247 (24 July, 2010) China or Bust: http://www.eastonbh.ac.nz/?p=1257 (7 August, 2010)…
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Riceonomics

Lessons in how to use an economic surplus. Listener: 2 October, 2010. Keywords: Globalisation & Trade; Political Economy & History; More than one tourist has asked how much it cost to build Beijing’s Forbidden City, a complex of 980 surviving buildings covering three-quarters of a hectare. Better to ignore the monetary cost and think about…
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Christchurch As a Global City

For the 131st AGM of the New Zealand Manufacturers and Exporters Association, 13 September, 2001 in Christchurch. (Revised) Keywords: Business & Finance; Globalisation and Trade; Growth & Innovation; This presentation takes place barely a week after the Great Canterbury Earthquake. It is a tribute to the fortitude of those who are here and their ancestors…
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The Bottom Line

Selling products around the world is much more complicated than it once seemed. Listener: 4 September, 2010 Keywords: Business & Finance; Globalisation & Trade; There is no problem understanding why Fonterra exports milk products to China. New Zealand is a very efficient producer of milk, and it sells its large surplus offshore. But why does…
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China or Bust

Spectacular Growth May Be Masking Unstable Foundations. Listener, 7 August, 2010. Keywords: Globalisation & Trade; Political Economy & History; The question was asked aggressively, and came from the Australian-Chinese businessman as we sat down for lunch: “Is there a bubble?” I avoided a direct answer; I had only briefly visited China, but I knew what…
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Will China Rule the World?

Listener: 24 July, 2010 Keywords: Globalisation & Trade; For most of the world’s history, economic activity was determined by population. Inequality between regions did not happen much, because any rise in incomes was checked by a Malthusian expansion of population. But the spectacular 19th-century industrialisation of Europe and North America concentrated economic activity there and…
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China and the Global Financial Crisis

Paper to the Wairarapa Branch of the NZIIA, July 21 2010. Keywords:  Globalisation & Trade; Macroeconomics & Money; Introduction Future historians are likely to identify the topics of this evening’s presentation as the two major economic forces of our times: the rising importance of the Chinese economy and the Global Financial Crisis. My task tonight…
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The Changing Balance Of World Power

Note to a foreign policy meeting under Chatham House rules, 21 June, 2010. Keywords: Globalisation & Trade; Political Economy & History; The central thesis of my paper is that the balance of world economic power is changing dramatically. The shift reflects the world economy shifting back to the pattern of the eighteenth century and earlier…
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The Challenge Of Globalisation

Presentation to an EPMU seminar, 29 April, 2010 Keywords: Globalisation & Trade; Labour Studies; Twenty years ago the Engineering Union commissioned me to think about the alternative to Rogernomics. According to the last prime minister, Helen Clark, my report Open Growth was influential on the last Labour Government’s economic strategy, although it was not totally…
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