Economy
An introductory economics course student is likely to meet the above graph. It shows that if the minimum wage (in purple) is above the point where the labour supply curve (in red) and labour demand curve (in blue) cross there will be less employment. That is what students are taught. But research shows the world does not work that way.
Read MoreIf we want to minimise the impact of the Covid virus we are going to have to think about social class.
Read MoreSometimes high theory loses the human point of the exercise.
Read MoreThe elimination of Covid strategy is not so much defeated but changing circumstances means that policy has to evolve.
Read MoreA Rogernome Defends the Policies.
Read MoreNot all neoliberals are the same, as a comparison ranging from Don Giovanni to Geneva School ordoliberals shows.
Read MoreA short review of the policy issues that Labour is facing and the ministers undertaking them.
Read MoreMichael Cullen set out his political philosophy in his autobiography. So has Chris Finlayson. His is having significant impact on Māori development.
Read MorePerhaps one of the reasons for vaccination hesitancy is that we are too casual about what constitutes science.
Read MoreThe research evidence is that humans, even experts, are poor forecasters.
Read MoreTrying to organise the electricity system around a competition model based on financial markets does not make sense.
Read MorePolitics in New Zealand is presented to the general public as theatre or sport. What is really going on is often misunderstood.
Read MoreGeoffrey Palmer has said that the public service has been so run down since 1984 that it could not today implement changes of the magnitude that the Lange-Douglas Government did.
Read MoreInside the Nudge Unit by David Halpern, provides new insights into behaviour which New Zealand public policy is steadily taking into consideration.
Read MorePhilosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it.
Read MoreMichael Cullen’s memoir Labour Saving provides one of the most coherent defences of social democracy written by a New Zealand politician.
Read MoreAnalysis of the housing market is difficult, so superficial solutions do not work. Perforce, this column has had to go into more technical detail than usual. It concludes, ‘The lesson is that the mainly neoliberal regime for the housing market since the early 1990s does not work: it has under-supplied quality housing, generated unsustainable house price inflation and excluded many “worthy” people from home ownership (and given a rough time to those who depend upon rental accommodation). That should not surprise any properly trained economist; many of the assumptions which underpin the standard market analysis do not apply to the housing market. The nostrums based upon such simple analyses will continue to fail no matter how plausible they sound.’
Read MoreNewsroom’ recalled Édith Piaf’s ‘je ne regrette rien’ to head an article in which Don Brash expressed much the same sentiment.
Read MoreProviding for the redundantly unemployed is admirable but difficult and expensive to implement.
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