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
Maybe things would be different if somebody had 'invented' prices. We tend not to understand and appreciate institutions, like prices, that emerge spontaneously through human interaction rather than are the product of human design. Read more
A fair pay agreement sounds like something everyone should want. After all, no one wants to work for unfair pay. Read more
Former Prime Minister Jim Bolger burst back into public life in mid-2018 to lead the government’s Fair Pay Agreement Working Group. The working group’s report was made public on 31 January. Read more
Can local community growth pay for itself? In other words, can economic growth itself pay for the community’s required infrastructure expansion (e.g. Read more
Parables, biblical or otherwise, are excellent instruction. They warn of the dangers of getting what you wish for. Read more
Three unanswered questions hang over the Reserve Bank capital proposals. First, do the benefits of the proposals exceed the costs? Read more