A collegial relationship between Treasury and the Reserve Bank is a good thing in principle. Monetary and fiscal policy remain the most important levers of economic policy, and the two institutions in charge of those levers need to exchange their views. Read more
Just on the horizon is the promise of better management of student data and the potential for better research on New Zealand school performance. Better data and insights are invariably the precursor to improvement and better outcomes for students. Read more
As of this week, the American economy has been growing for 121 months, the longest since records began in 1854. On the back of it, the global economy – including New Zealand’s – has been sailing through calm waters. Read more
If there’s one line in the 1967 classic film The Graduate that has aged poorly, it might be Mr McGuire’s advice to a young Dustin Hoffman to find his future in plastics. Now, just over 50 years later, plastics are more commonly cast as retro at best, and an environmental menace otherwise. Read more
He famously claimed his chances of becoming Prime Minister were “about as good as the chances of finding Elvis on Mars, or my being reincarnated as an olive”. It probably means Boris Johnson will be a pizza topping in his next life. Read more
The government has released its Road to Zero consultation document, laying out a Vision Zero approach aiming for “no one is killed or seriously injured in road crashes”. A zero-road toll pledge may be a good soundbite, but not a good policy prescription. Read more
Dear Minister of Finance, I am writing to apply for the position of Lead Economic Advisor to the Government, a position held by The Treasury since the 1940s. Please find enclosed my CV with references. Read more
A truism in politics has been codified in what’s been called Miles’s Law: “Where you stand depends on where you sit.” In other words, principles can depend a bit on one’s interests. Legend had it that one of the professors who taught courses in antitrust where I went to graduate school liked to quip: “I support antitrust because antitrust supports me.” Consulting in antitrust cases was rather lucrative. Read more
If we could fixing the tangled mess of regulation stymieing new home construction, it would help alleviate real misery. The housing shortage leads directly to rents that take up too much of our paycheques, to overcrowding, and potentially to poor health. Read more
All’s well that ends well. There is a temptation to sum up the resolution of the European Union’s personnel-finding troubles in such a Shakespearean way. Read more
In the next 10 years, 100,000 more children are expected to enrol in New Zealand schools. In response to this “unprecedented population growth”, the Ministry of Education established the National Education Growth Plan (NEGP) earlier this month. Read more
Lost in the government’s response to the Interim Climate Change Committee this week was the decision to put on ice its 100% renewable electricity policy to focus on other more effective measures. It is hard to overstate the significance of this decision. Read more
In late June, the Initiative took a delegation of our members to Copenhagen. For a week, more than three dozen New Zealand business leaders traveled Denmark and South Sweden. Read more
There was a line of ’80s and ’90s motivational posters, often involving pictures of cats, with quips that might help improve spirits around the workplace. One of those, from memory, read something like, “You don’t have to be crazy to work here, but it helps!” Other variants read, “You don’t have to be crazy to work here; we will train you.” None of them would pass modern sensitivity standards, and they were never really motivational or funny in the first place. Read more
New Zealand performs strongly in a number of international rankings, and not so well in others, as well covered by this publication. So when a delegation of Kiwi business leaders recently went to Denmark to see how a small country was a world leader – economically and socially – we were struck by what made the Danes so successful. Read more