The biggest lesson of 20th Century economics is that it is hard to get anything right if prices are wrong. It is high time that lesson were applied to transport. Read more
Could changes in 1989 to New Zealand’s tax treatment of retirement savings plausibly explain a significant portion of the subsequent sharp rise in New Zealand house prices? Andrew Coleman made the case that it could to a LEANZ audience in Wellington this week. Read more
Memo to: FSB Spy Class 2018, Moscow (New Zealand posting) From: Chief Instructor Disguise Subject: Discoverability Comrades, For spies it is best not to be discovered. Discovery is never helpful. Read more
Humpty Dumpty would have fun with the Policy Targets Agreement (PTA) between Finance Minister Grant Robertson and the new governor of the Reserve Bank, Adrian Orr: “When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.” “The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.” “The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master – that’s all.” The world of monetary economics is not quite as colourful as the characters in Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. However, the governor may find himself in the role of Humpty Dumpty when interpreting his political directives. Read more
There is an old saying that when you are in a battle with yourself and you win, you still lose. Perhaps the same thing can be said of our housing shortage. Read more
This week, the Reserve Bank finally got a new Governor. Adrian Orr, formerly chief executive of the Super Fund, replaced caretaker-governor Grant Spencer. Read more
If you are as lucky as me and found yourself watching Parliament at 9pm on Tuesday night, you would have seen the debate on the Government’s proposed regional fuel tax legislation. The legislation will allow Auckland initially, and other regions later, to tax petrol and diesel up to 10 cents per litre for transport projects. Read more
New Zealand’s republicans have a point. There is a nefarious foreign influence dictating too much in New Zealand. Read more
Few countries run as much on informal relationships as New Zealand. It is both due to our small size and our aversion to hierarchies. Read more
Loyal readers of the Initiative’s work will know there are more than a few problems with New Zealand’s secondary school qualification. As Briar Lipson’s report released earlier this month showed, the system makes it rather too easy for students to be directed through ‘safe’ pathways to qualifications of little quality. Read more
Perhaps it is a product of New Zealand’s geographic isolation, which creates concern not to be left behind. But since moving here from England my education hogwash-o-meter has been reading unusually high. Read more
“I know an old lady who swallowed a fly” is a nonsensical story that has delighted children for decades. Its tale of an old woman, who swallowed increasingly large animals, each to catch the previous one, is as humorous as it is absurd. Read more
There is no shortage of opinion pieces or expert commentary making the case that Kiwis are financially illiterate. Apparently we’re not good with savings, we don’t plan for the future, and we do not take even simple actions (like switching out of our default KiwiSaver funds) to optimise our future financial security. Read more
US President Donald Trump’s new protectionism is populist, wrong and dangerous. Sadly, that does not mean that his loudest opponents can automatically claim the moral high ground. Read more
When concerned parents ask me why kids all seem to pass NCEA with little or no effort, I sometimes use the subprime mortgage crisis as an analogy. This is how it goes. Read more