Category Archives: Statistics

Leaky Legislation

Listener: 15 September, 2012. Austrian philosopher Ivan Illich coined the expression “iatrogenic medicine” to describe illness generated by the actions of physicians. An example is when the doctors prescribe some medicine, with resultant side effects, which are treated by further medication. The cycle repeats until a specialist reviews the patient’s entire record and stops all…
Continue reading this entry »

The Course Of Prices: 1860 to Today

An appendix for Not in Narrow Seas: New Zealand History from an Economic Perspective The work was funded by a grant from the Reserve Bank of New Zealand which is not responsible for any errors or interpretations. A version was presented to an RBNZ seminar on 1 March 2012. Keywords: Macroeconomics & Money; Political Economy…
Continue reading this entry »

The Political Economy Of the Consumer Price Index

A Research Gathering: Viewing New Zealand’s Social, Economic and Political History Through the Eyes of the CPI; 15 July, 2010 Keywords: Political Economy & History; Statistics; My task today is to convey that the Consumer Price Index (CPI) occurs in an economic, political and social context. That does not mean that the statistic lacks authority,…
Continue reading this entry »

Growth and Recessions Of Economic Output: 1861-1939

This is an appendix for ‘Not in Narrow Seas: New Zealand History from an Economic Perspective’, a book I am writing. It is published here so that people can access the technical material. The data is available on request. Keywords: Macroeconomics & Money; Political Economy & History; Statistics; Over the last sixty years we have…
Continue reading this entry »

Debt and Equity in Nz’s International Investment Position.

I wrote this note to clarify some matters to myself; I shant be surprise if they become more prominent in 2011. Keywords: Macroeconomics & Money; Statistics; I have been looking at the International Investment Position focusing on the equity to debt ratio, in effect thinking about New Zealand’s external balance sheet as if it were…
Continue reading this entry »

Drinking and Self Assessed Welfare: a Statistical Analysis

This is the draft of a paper for 2009 Conference of the New Zealand Statistical Association, 3 September 2009. The presentation was a PowerPoint based on it. It is part of a study of the impact of drinking by associates undertaken by the  Centre for Social and Health Outcomes, Research and Evaluation (SHORE), Massey University….
Continue reading this entry »

New Insights into the Experienced Generations

Speech to Launch the Report “New Insights into the Experienced Generation” for the Hope Foundation, 30 July 2009   Keywords: Social Policy; Statistics;   This report represents a further step to our understanding of ourselves as a society. Only a few decades ago we treated all New Zealanders as the same, with the implicit assumption…
Continue reading this entry »

Economic Growth Research in New Zealand: the Fathers That Begat Us

Paper to the 50th Anniversary Conference of the New Zealand Association of Economists: 1 July, 2009: Wellington.  Keywords: Growth & Innovation; History of Ideas, Methodology & Philosophy; Statistics;   This paper looks only at the first 25 years of the New Zealand research program on economic growth. It focuses on the empirical analysis but refers…
Continue reading this entry »

The Global Financial Crisis: Some Accounting Features

One Stop Update for Accountants in the Public Sector  20 April 2009, Wellington.   Keywords: Macroeconomics & Money; Statistics;   Balance sheets are integrally involved in the greatest economic crisis in our lifetime. So while my remit is to provide the conference with an economic context to its deliberations, I have to engage with accountancy….
Continue reading this entry »

Measuring the Impact Of Gambling

Paper to the Wellington Statistical Group, 2 February, 2009. (With Quan (Ryan) You Analyst, Centre for Social and Health Outcomes Research and Evaluation (SHORE), of Massey University.)   Keywords: Health; Statistics;   In 2007 the Ministry of Health commissioned Massey University’s Centre for Social and Health Outcomes Research and Evaluation (SHORE) and Te Ropu Whariki…
Continue reading this entry »

Assessment Of the Social Impacts Of Gambling in New Zealand

Report to Ministry of Health by Centre for Social and Health Outcomes Research and Evaluation & Te Ropu Whariki, Massey University.   Keywords: Health; Statistics;   “The report of the project Assessment of the Social Impacts of Gambling in New Zealand was primarily written by En-Yi (Judy) Lin and Sally  Casswell with analysis by Ru…
Continue reading this entry »

Media Messes

Are journalists making the economic situation seem worse?    Listener 31 May, 2008    Keywords: Macroeconomics & Money; Statistics;    What is happening to journalism? You will recall that, last year, journalists campaigned for tax cuts based on a total misunderstanding of the Government accounts. They used the wrong measure of the Budget surplus, which…
Continue reading this entry »

Household Equivalents for Engel Curve to Estimation

Note prepared 6 April, 2008.   Keywords: Distributional Economics; Statistics;   The conventional Engel Curve relates expenditure on (usually) food (F) to aggregate household (usually) expenditure (X). Since it is a one-to-one relation it my be mathematically inverted to               (1)        X = f(F, z) where z is a vector of other variables which…
Continue reading this entry »

Incentives Matter: Incentive Design Matters More

Listener: 22 March, 2008. Keywords: Social Policy; Statistics; “Incentives matter” is a routine part of economists’ thinking. Tax a commodity, its price goes up and there is an incentive to reduce consumption. Reduce the tax, the price goes down and the incentive goes the other way. But many real-life circumstances are more complex, and the…
Continue reading this entry »

The Current State Of the Public Sector: an Economist’s View

The 11th Annual Public Sector Finance Forum. 10 September, 2007     Keywords: Macroeconomics & Money; Regulation & Taxation; Statistics;    It has been my lot to be asked to give two papers to this Public Sector Finance Forum. Today’s paper might be called the ‘macroeconomics’ paper, in which I look at the size of…
Continue reading this entry »