Election campaigns are strange times. There can be a lot of talk about policy, but the real policy apparatus of government goes into limbo. Read more

People are more careful when spending their own money than when spending on behalf of others. This truism is especially relevant in election years, but it applies more broadly. Read more

Wealth taxes are tricky things. Even leaving aside the complications in real-world applications that caused the OECD to recommend against them, wealth taxes have an additional pernicious effect. Read more

If your main source of information on this year’s cannabis referendum were the Say Nope To Dope campaign, it would be pretty easy to imagine marijuana-leaf decorated cannabis shops on every corner. Contrary to that campaign’s full-page ads portraying classic Kiwi dairies turned into garish marijuana stores, the Cannabis Legalisation and Control Bill is rather restrictive. Read more

Wellington City’s Draft Spatial Plan, currently out for consultation, asks where the city might find room for another 50-80,000 people over the next thirty years. The challenge is bigger than that. Read more

Voting is not a duty. But if you do vote, you should vote well. Read more

The real fun in Treasury fiscal updates is rarely in the headlines. It’s rather in the finer print where the assumptions underpinning the main estimates are laid out, and where different scenarios are played out. Read more

Treasury’s pre-election fiscal update makes for grim reading. Bryce Wilkinson tallies the numbers, showing the forecasts are based on heroic projections about growth in labour productivity and on greater fiscal discipline than has been the norm. Read more

Last week, National proposed a series of policies to increase the uptake of electric vehicles. Suppose it works exactly as promised and the number of electric vehicles quadruples in the next three years. Read more