Pragmatic analysis says maybe we should, but we should also consider nationalisation. We should certainly consider better ...

We should follow the Golden Rule of Fiscal Management and not borrow for consumption in the medium run. Asymmetry is a crucial, but often ignored, feature of credit transactions. You would normally be ...

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 ...

While there have been decades of complaints – from all sides – about the workings of the Resource Management Act (RMA), replacing is proving difficult. The Coalition Government is making another ...

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 ...

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 ...

The ACT party election manifesto will propose to introduce a Regulatory Standards Act to set a higher bar for new regulation, and test regulations against the key principles of the Regulatory ...

The book I am currently working on – tentative title ‘In Open Seas’ – looks at the current and future New Zealand. One chapter describes the policy towards Covid using the trope of warfare. It covers ...

There are three major but separate issues which constitute our housing problem: not enough quality housing; a speculative boom in house prices generating unsustainable inflation; an inability by ...

The invitation to comment on the proposed Regulatory Standards Bill opens with Minister David Seymour stating ‘[m]ost of New Zealand's problems can be traced to poor productivity, and poor ...

Legitimate pressures on government spending suggest we are going to have to raise total tax revenue or suffer a poorer quality New Zealand. About a decade ago, I was on the external Treasury panel ...