OPINION

Globally, growth in productivity and GDP has stalled. Much of the West and Japan suffer from rapidly deteriorating demographics and crippling levels of debt. Read more

In New York City, a bottle placed on the curbside for recycling can find its way back into a convenience store, relabeled and refilled, within thirty days. In Auckland City, a bottle’s destiny is not so enduring. Read more

Perhaps the defining global economic issue of this decade has been inequality. The notion that a free market economy promotes inequality is having an impact on the political climate. Read more

‘Give a man a fish, and he’ll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he’ll steal your fish’. Read more

Auckland’s housing crisis produces some strange side effects. One of them is that the word ‘boarding school’ might acquire a new meaning. Read more

In the mid-2000s, when inflation was running hot and the Reserve Bank was having a tough time keeping things under control, the former Business Roundtable’s Roger Kerr warned that monetary policy needed mates. Government made the Reserve Bank’s job even harder by running expansionary fiscal policy when labour markets were tight and inflation was a problem. Read more

Heritage buildings provide real value. They are often cherished by their owners, who bought them for their character. Read more

If there is one art Prime Minister John Key’s New Zealand government has mastered, it is expectation management. So for its eighth budget, delivered yesterday, expectations were low. Read more

It has now been a couple of weeks since we found out that the Overseas Investment Office was not being as thorough in its background character checks on investors as some might have wanted. Every day, I’ve been scanning the newspaper headlines, waiting for the other shoe to drop. Read more

Last week saw a rare conjunction. Almost all the political parties agreed that Auckland’s artificial rural urban boundary had to be lifted to free up land for housing development. Read more

It is a journalistic sin to come up with headlines such as “Small earthquake in Chile, not many dead”. With that in mind, you have to pity journalists trying to write about yesterday’s budget. Read more

Amid the rancorous debate about whether a land tax should be imposed on non-resident property buyers it is vital to remember what caused New Zealand’s housing crisis in the first place: a sustained lack of land supply. Far too often in the discussion on how to cool Auckland’s white-hot housing market the focus strays from this fundamental fact, and falls on demand-side factors. Read more

In 1965, South Korea and Kenya had more in common than they have today. In summary, both countries were poor. Read more

Have you ever read a headline claiming some scientific finding that doesn’t sound quite right? Like that cheese is as addictive as cocaine, vegetarianism gives you cancer, or that having a glass of red wine is equivalent to spending one hour at the gym. Read more

Stereotypes are long-lasting. Think of Africa and images of poverty, hunger and violence come to mind. Read more