Just where in the economic spectrum does the current National Party stand?
Read MoreMañana Politics
Economy
Designing a Health System for Health Care Delivery
A recent column was concerned that the next health system redisorganisation was about centralising control, without adequate accountability, rather than about how to provide better health care. There has gotta be a better way.
Read MoreThe Rules of Consultative Engagement
During a recent public consultation on the future of Archives New Zealand, a key report was suppressed. The Ombudsman has ruled that the refusal was unjustified. Sadly, the consultation was over by the time of the the decision has been made. However, the law on the use of the Official Information Act has been clarified.
Read MoreCentralising Health Care
Is the consequence of the Simpson Report proposals for restructuring the health system poorer accountability to people?
Read MoreHinges of History: After Covid-19?
Will the Covid Crisis lead to a dramatic redirection for New Zealand and the World?
Read MoreDo We Really Know Our History?
The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.
Read MoreThe Wobbly Bicycle
The Government is spending like it was trying to win the election. The Opposition is trying to outbid it
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Oliver Twist dominates too much of social policy.
Oliver Twist, famously asked for ‘more’. He did not challenge the system of workhouses – Dickens did – nor the authority of Beadle Bumble. He was only nine.
Read MoreWhither the Media?
The ownership of newspapers and televison channels is in turmoil, and they want to redisorganise public broadcasting.
Read MoreWhat the 2020 Budget Forecasts Mean
The media treat budgets as bit of a circus: lots of theatre and soon forgotten. For a serious economist they show how a team of economists is thinking about the wider economy.
Read MoreIf it Takes Too Long to Produce a Covid Vaccine.
I wrote this note to sort out my ideas on the significance of a covid-19 vaccine for the return to economic ‘normalcy’. I am sharing it but expect readers to recognise there are judgements in areas for which I have no expertise.
Read MoreDistribution and the Budget
It is too easy to stick to conventional thinking when we are in a totally new economic environment. Thinking about distributional issues allows us to think deeper.
Read MoreCovid19 and History
Isolation and PPE in 1918
I have been asked what my book, Not in Narrow Seas: The Economic History of Aotearoa New Zealand, out this month, says about the Covid Crisis. The short answer is nothing ... and everything.
Read MoreAbout the Economic Future: Good Questions – Uncertain Answers
An uncertain attempt to explain what is going on in the economy. If you confidently know the answers to any of these questions, you have not been following closely enough.
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How Much Unemployment?
While we cannot eliminate the impending unemployment; we have to flatten the curve.
Read MoreContra Damien: what libertarians get wrong about preserving freedom
A short, sharp curtailment of freedom might be better than a protracted, dull one.
Read MoreWhere is the New Zealand Economy Going?
The economy may not follow any of the just released Treasury scenarios, but they provide a basis for a discussion on our economic track. (The graph above is from the Treasury report.)
Read MoreLevel three and three-quarters: it’s not a holiday
This is going to suck
Read MoreThe five things to do for a radical recovery
To pull our society from the brink, we will need unprecedented economic change.
Read MoreA Child's Introduction to Quantitative Easing
This paper demonstrates the truism that for every financial liability is matched by an asset. A fiscal deficit creates a liability of the government. Somewhere outside government – somewhere in the private sector – there is a private asset matching this public liability.
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