Podcast: Why New Zealand's productivity lags behind small European nations

In this episode, Oliver talks to Michael Johnston about New Zealand's productivity paradox and why the country underperforms economically despite having strong institutions. They discuss lessons from small European countries like Switzerland, Ireland, Denmark, and the Netherlands, exploring how factors like decentralisation, foreign direct investment, trade integration, and national culture could help improve New Zealand's economic performance. Read more

Dr Oliver Hartwich
Dr Michael Johnston
10 October, 2025
NewstalkZB Mike Hosking square

Newstalk ZB: Mike Hosking recommends Roger Partridge's article on Reserve Bank capital review

On Newstalk ZB, Mike Hosking recommended Roger Partridge's the New Zealand Herald article on bank capital requirements, explaining the context of Adrian Orr's policy requiring banks to hold significant reserves - which banks argued contributed to higher mortgage costs. Hosking outlined Partridge's criticism that the Reserve Bank Board's government-ordered review of these requirements was done improperly and essentially solved nothing. Read more

Mike Hosking
Newstalk ZB
10 October, 2025

NZ’s answer to infrastructure crisis hiding in plain sight

“We have no money, so we shall have to think.” That line is ascribed to New Zealand physicist Ernest Rutherford before he cracked the atom. The country’s current Prime Minister, Christopher Luxon and his Finance Minister Nicola Willis face a rather different conundrum, albeit under the same constraint: How do you deliver modern infrastructure when Treasury’s 2025 long-term fiscal statement projects government debt reaching 200 per cent of GDP by 2065? Read more

Dr Oliver Hartwich
The Australian
8 October, 2025
2025 10 07 the post

Academic freedom legislation puts too much trust in university managers

Sometime in the first half of 2019, Ji Ruan, a senior lecturer in computer science at Auckland University of Technology, organised an event to commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. He no doubt assumed that, in a free country like New Zealand, this would be no problem. Read more

Dr Michael Johnston
Dr James Kierstead
The Post
4 October, 2025

The hidden cost of excessive regulation

Every time New Zealanders apply for a mortgage or business loan, they pay the price for the Reserve Bank’s controversial 2019 bank capital decision to increase capital requirements for major banks by almost 100%. The decision made our banks much more heavily capitalised than most of their international peers. Read more

Roger Partridge
Insights Newsletter
3 October, 2025

The beauty of starting small

Not long ago, doing anything on Canada’s Indian Reserves was almost as hard as doing anything on whenua Māori. Here, the roughly six percent of the country held under Māori land tenure is beset by regulatory difficulty far worse than that bedevilling the rest of New Zealand. Read more

Dr Eric Crampton
Insights Newsletter
3 October, 2025
roger submission

Submission: 2025 Review of Key Capital Settings

1. INTRODUCTION AND RECOMMENDATIONS 1.1 This submission to the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) on its 2025 Review of Bank Capital Requirements (the Review) and accompanying consultation paper (the Consultation paper)1 is made by The New Zealand Initiative, an independent think tank supported primarily by major New Zealand businesses. Read more

Roger Partridge
Submission
2 October, 2025

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