Economy
Two-and-a-half years on, the Government’s merged mega-polytechnic, the New Zealand Institute of Skills and Technology – Te Pūkenga, is facing a deficit which is double the planned one. Will Health New Zealand – Te Whatu Ora (HNZ) be facing similar troubles in December 2024?
Read MoreToo many commentators on current price pressures have not understood that this time it is very different from the 1970s. Their prescriptions may accelerate inflation.
Read MoreAndrea Vance’s ‘Blue Blood: The Inside Story of the National Party in Crisis’ provides broader insights about how Parliament works than just National’s troubles.
Read MoreAre We Keeping Up With the Changing Global Trade Patterns?
Read MoreThe ongoing decline in market income inequality stopped in the 1980s. Since then it has been stable, while 1990 public policy actively increased disposable income inequality.
Read MoreWe cannot be sure, but the answer matters even in the short term.
Read MoreBehavioural economics challenges our assumptions about the relevance of rational economic man.
Read MoreThe takeaways from the just released data are:
1. Any estimate of GDP is subject to error.
2. The 0.2 percent decrease in the March 2022 quarter is not precise and will be revised, with the mild likelihood that it will eventually be higher.
3. New Zealand has no ‘official' definition of a recession.
4. The New Zealand economy seems to be stagnating. Whether we are in a recession (or going into one) or it is something more structural we cannot yet tell.
Read MoreThe outlook does not look that promising.
Read MorePerhaps we are reaching the stage of the 1870s, the 1930s and the 1970s of growing unease about the state of the New Zealand economy. It is not stagnating, but it is not obviously going anywhere either. Will we have another ‘Think Big’ and if so, what will be the balance between the private and public involvement?
Read More‘Dark Towers’, a book on Deutsche Bank, throws light on a long running economic dispute.
Read MoreBudget 2022: What does Treasury think is happening to the economy whose evolution underpins the budget policies?
Read MoreThe informed discussion on the next steps in tax policy is about improving the income tax base, not about taxing wealth directly.
Read MoreWhile the new fiscal rules may not be contentious, what they mean for macroeconomic management is not explained.
Read MorePopulation growth has some effect on economic growth, but it is complicated especially where infrastructure is involved. We need to think more about it.
Read MoreReductions in effective productivity, largely as a result of events overseas, require reductions in real incomes. Ignore that and you cannot defeat inflation.
Read MoreWe do not go to war for free; we need to factor its economic costs and its consequences into public discussions.
Read MoreSimon Bridges’ memoir, ‘National Identity: Confessions of an Outsider’, illustrates that humans are more complicated than the categories we put them into.
Read MoreHistory books and policy changes such as for Three Waters and the media merger warn us ignoring economics is dangerous.
Read MoreClaims that our current inflation is due to government spending are nonsensical. There is a mantra which goes: if the economy is expanding, cut back public spending; if the economy is contracting, cut back public spending; if the economy is inflating, cut back public spending; if the economy is deflating, cut back public spending. Recognise a pattern?
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