OPINION

They say that you can't teach an old dog new tricks. But you sure can teach new dogs some old tricks. Read more

In the DC comic story, a flying Superman spies Lois Lane tied across a railroad line. A fast-moving passenger train is but metres away. Read more

A NZIER report released this week discredits a WorkSafe NZ safety programme that started in November 2011. The programme aims to reduce workplace falls from heights of below 3 metres. Read more

Almost a month after the election, New Zealand is about to have a new government. Yes, other countries take longer to negotiate coalitions. Read more

If no person’s life, liberty or property are safe while Parliament is in session, what’s the rush to have a new government? As I write this column, no coalition has been struck. Read more

Two weeks ago, and as part of an ongoing series about transport planning, investment and outcomes, I wrote about the road toll. In that period a further 15 car occupants have died, including four people north of Taupō this past Tuesday. Read more

When mathematician Stanislaw Ulam challenged Paul Samuelson to point to anything in economics that was both universally true and non-obvious, Samuelson pointed to David Ricardo’s principle of comparative advantage: Even the least productive countries still benefit from trade. Richard Thaler’s Nobel Prize is richly deserved for several substantive contributions in behavioural economics. Read more

It is Friday, 13 October and I am not writing about the coalition talks. We would have hoped to have a new government by now. Read more

In its 2017 Annual Report, the Board of Directors of the Reserve Bank refers to itself as “a unique governance body in the public sector”. But unique is not necessarily synonymous with good. Read more

Going to sleep at night, in bed with a hot water bottle and a teddy bear, it is comforting to know that somewhere some academic is toiling away, advancing the frontiers of knowledge. Associate Professor Ranjit Voola of the University of Sydney Business School has done this. Read more

What is the difference between automatically enrolling workers in KiwiSaver and putting a housefly sticker in a urinal for men to aim at? Any well-read economist will tell you that both are oft-cited examples inspired by behavioural economics and ‘nudge’ theory. Read more

For those of us who think elections should be about policies and not about politics, MMP presents a special kind of purgatory. It is one day short of a fortnight since the election but are we any closer to knowing the result? Read more

We do not know what government will form after party negotiations move past the Phoney War stage. But we do know the problems facing any incoming government. Read more

According to the Economist Intelligence Unit, New Zealand leads the world in ‘educating for the future’. Their latest index, compiled in London, evaluates the extent to which the inputs to education systems prioritise ‘future skills’. Read more

A solipsist is a person who believes that only they exist. For a solipsist, the external world only exists through their perception of it. Read more