The Treasury Investment Statement reports that government’s Total Net Worth was $191b (48% of GDP), falling to $183b (42% of ...

The picture the commentariat presents of Winston Peters is a misleading caricature. If we don’t try to understand the complexity of the man, we cannot understand what is going on in New Zealand ...

Following the Richardson/Shipley 1990 ‘redesign of the welfare state’ – which eliminated the universal Family Benefit and doubled the rate of child poverty – various income supplements for families ...

Public policy towards tobacco consumption remains politically sensitive. In 1983, a young researcher was told by a medium-level Treasury official that Treasury policy was to abandon excise duties on ...

A close analysis of the Treasury assessment of the Medium Term in its PREFU 2023 suggests the economy may be entering a new phase. Last week I explained that the forecasts in the just published ...

The current rise of populism challenges the way we think about people’s relationship to the economy. We seem to be entering an era of populism, in which leadership in a democracy is based on ...

This year’s Nobel awards in economics raise critical issues about the future of the world. I was not alone with high hopes when the Soviet Union collapsed. It has been good to see various nations ...

Winning office is not the same as achieving change. A recent Economist columnist divided politicians and their political advisers into either ‘jock wankers’ or ‘nerd wankers’. It’s a distinction which ...

Severe geological and financial earthquakes are inevitable. We just don’t know how soon and how they will play out. Are we putting the right effort into preparing for them? Every decade or so the ...

Keynes warned us that practical men and women are but slaves of defunct economists. The comment is particularly relevant as we try to understand the prospects for inflation. During the 1951 election ...

It is difficult to make sense of the Luxon Coalition Government’s economic management. This end-of-year review about the state of economic management – the state of the economy was last week – is not ...

The proposal to organise fresh water, storm water and waste water into four entities reflects the contempt that New Zealand’s central government has for local communities. It is not the only example ...