Is the fiscal pact between Labour and the Greens a defeat for the left? The parliamentary left seems cowed by the neoliberals if the fiscal pact between Labour and the Greens is anything to go by. This column focuses on their fourth promise which observes that ‘Core Crown spending has been around 30% of GDP…
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Paper to the Fabian Society, 12 October, 2016 While we continue to chew over the carcass of the Fourth Labour Government – the Lange-Douglas one – we pay little attention to the subsequent Fifth Labour Government. Yet the Clark-Cullen one is greatly shaping the current Labour Opposition and the current National Government. It will,…
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In too many areas the government is avoiding taking policy decisions. When it has to its panic measures are knee-jerk and quick-fix. Just nine years ago, John Key, then leader of the opposition, spoke to the Auckland branch of the New Zealand Contractors Federation about housing affordability which he described then as a ‘crisis reached…
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They involve tax rates horrendously high or the minimum incomes so low that the UMI is not a viable means of eliminating poverty. The notion of a universal minimum income has had a long gestation. Some say it originated with a proposal for a ‘social dividend’ by Lady Rhys Williams as far back as 1942…
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‘Iwi leaders and the Government have agreed on a deadline to sort out Maori interests in fresh water by Waitangi Day 2016.’ (News: 5 February 2015) Law and economics recognises three distinct aspects of property rights. There is the ability to use the property, the ability to transform it into something else, and the ability…
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How might a non-ideological capital gains tax look like? Someone once told me that a test of being a socialist was whether you supported capital gains taxes. I pointed out that the New Zealand Treasury, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand the IMF and the OECD all supported them. Not explicitly – perhaps they are…
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Keywords: Regulation & Taxation; Support from the EU delegation and the German and Polish embassies in New Zealand plus a travel grant from Air New Zealand enabled me to visit Europe on a study tour in June and July 2014. Much of what I learned will appear (first) as columns, the material I…
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If New Zealand is heading for a housing market implosion, watch what you borrow. Listener: 24 June, 2014. Keywords: Business & Finance; Macroeconomics & Money; Regulation & Taxation; When commentator Jesse Colombo in business journal Forbes said New Zealand had a housing and credit bubble, Economic Development Minister Steven Joyce shot the…
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nequality, poverty, and prospects for a better life A Spirited Conversation: 28 May, 2014, Nelson Keywords: Distributional Economics; Regulation & Taxation; Social Policy; I want to begin by talking about Stacey who was a 14 year old Aucklander I met a couple of years ago when I was working on a…
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The answer to cutting carbon emissions is to wallop shoppers in the wallet. Listener: 24 April, 2014 Keywords: Environment & Resources; Regulation & Taxation; Who pays beer tax? Technically, it is paid to the Government by the brewers. But they pass it on, so ultimately the tax is paid by beer drinkers….
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Can the property companies that run rest homes provide effective care? Listener: 14 November, 2013 Keywords: Regulation & Taxation; Retirement Policy; Social Policy; I have had to visit a number of rest homes for the elderly. Such visits can be pretty draining. The one positive is the caring and concerned staff –…
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It’s time to stop subsidising speculation on housing. Listener: 19 September, 2013. Keywords: Regulation & Taxation; Social Policy; Scared by finance company failure, you decide to invest some of your savings in a rental property. You borrow just enough so the tenant’s payments cover the interest, rates and other outgoings. The return…
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How to live with the Treasury’s Long Term Financial Projections. Listener: 11 August, 2013. Keywords: Regulation & Taxation; Retirement Policy; Social Policy; I was on the external panel advising the team from the Treasury that put together its Long Term Fiscal Projections, required every four years and looking half a century forward. A…
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Carefully designed changes to the electricity-generation industry could make it work better. Listener: 25 May, 2013 Keywords: Business & Finance; Regulation & Taxation; Discussions on what to do about electricity have been so political and self-interested that almost all the public economic analysis has been puerile. So let’s begin with some basics….
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New technologies and light-handed regulation are a recipe for disaster. Listener: 16 March , 2013. Keywords: Business & Finance; Regulation & Taxation; The leaky-building debacle involved homes and commercial and public buildings being built with new technologies that the builders were not competent to use, coupled with weak supervision and regulation. The…
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This index, first compiled in January 2013 and subsequently updated, is a list of article on the website which have a substantial content about earthquakes and other natural calamities. They were not a focus until the Canterbury Earthquakes, which I began writing about as “Listener” columns to illustrate general issues. However, they are acquiring a…
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What is to be Done about Light Handed Regulation? Paper to the Fabian Society, December 14, 2012. For Regulation and Leaky Buildings see http://www.eastonbh.ac.nz/?p=1686. This lecture was originally advertised as illustrating the deficiencies of light-handed regulation by failures in the building industry, particularly leaky buildings and those not robust to earthquakes. The intention was the…
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A Note prepared in October 2012. Keywords: Macroeconomics & Money; Regulation & Taxation; Introduction I have argued there is a critical threshold where if the fiscal deficit exceeds it public debt grows unsustainability faster than the ability of the economy to service it (usually measured by GDP). This note quantifies the threshold…
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Presentation to a Treasury Workshop on the Long-Term Fiscal Projections; 26 September, 2012. I am writing a history of New Zealand from an economic perspective. The manuscript – 250,000 words and I am only up to the 1970s – includes a number of appendices looking at the data. One is on government spending. The Treasury…
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Introduction to a Fabian Society series on Light-handed Regulation, Wellington.10 September 2012 This is the first of five presentations on light-handed regulation. Its critics sometimes call it “light-headed” regulation, referring to the simple mindedness of the idea, or “light-fingered” regulation, referring to the way a goodly number used it to line their own pockets at…
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