OPINION

A grey outlook on Europe’s pension reform | Dr Oliver Hartwich | Business Spectator The crisis of its monetary union may be Europe’s most pressing economic problem for the coming years, but it is not the continent’s greatest challenge in the long run. Europe’s demographic change is an even more serious issue. Read more

When the government took the Housing Accords and Special Housing Areas Bill to its third reading, it marked a shift in the past 20 years of planning in New Zealand by potentially centralising planning approvals to Wellington. The basis of the deal is that the Auckland council agrees to expedite its approvals process and cuts down potential development approval times from years to months. Read more

Think that New Zealand is the only nation that faces house price inflation? Well we are not, but we are in a club of mostly Anglosphere nations that experience rabid house price inflation. Read more

The idea of a living wage is not new. New Zealand’s Arbitration Court determined in November 1936 that a basic weekly wage of £3.16s for an adult male would be sufficient to maintain a husband, wife, and three children in a fair and reasonable standard of comfort. Read more

Before you start thinking that there is a radical new health or safety (or better still, health and safety) measure in place to ban hundreds and thousands biscuits in schools, a more serious matter is at stake: are schools banning hundreds and thousands of students? This matters, because OECD data shows that school systems that transfer disruptive students out of schools, as a system, tend to perform lower and are less equitable. Read more

If Australia’s new government needed a reminder of what economic challenges lie ahead, the recent Global Competitiveness Report 2013-2014 delivered it. For the first time since the World Economic Forum started gathering data on the economic attractiveness of different countries, Australia dropped out of the global top 20 and is now in 21st place. Read more

Most followers of the euro crisis agree that the German elections, to be held on September 22, will be a watershed moment. Everything that had been put on hold in the crisis will finally be allowed to happen once Angela Merkel has been returned to power. Read more

Let's play a game of guess the city: What major Australasian metropolitan area has house prices that are rising twice as fast as inflation and average wage thanks to low interest rates and a lack of supply? Got a good fix on which city I'm talking about? Read more

If you listened closely on Wednesday morning at about 10am, when the World Economic Forum released its Global Competitiveness Index, you might have heard the sound of large quantities of air being gulped down as chests across the country filled with pride. The report showed New Zealand is ranked as the 18th most competitive economy in the world, up five places on last year, but more importantly – at least from a patriotic point of view - three places ahead of Australia, which dropped out of the top 20 for the first time ever. Read more

Imagine the following situation: Your next-door neighbours are going to have a party. They know it will be noisy and it might last till the wee hours. Read more

Nothing arouses the passions like a sport the whole country can get behind, a sport with such wide appeal it’s embraced by the masses and is accessible to anyone and everyone. I am, of course, talking about yachting. Read more

One of the pleasures of the friendly rivalry enjoyed between New Zealand and Australia is the ability to gently rub the opposition’s face in the mud when they’re on a losing streak (in a good natured way of course). This year’s resounding Bledisloe Cup thrashing was just such a chance, but we’re also extending our lead in a more fundamental arena, namely the economy. Read more

Last month, New Zealand celebrated emphatic victories over Australia in the Bledisloe Cup. For many years, sporting competitions like this were the only opportunity for Kiwis to beat their cousins across the Tasman. Read more

Now here's an economic policy idea: What if we strategically placed a few pocket-sized atomic bombs around New Zealand and detonated them? Not too devastating to wipe the country off the face of the earth, of course. Read more

Speech by Dr Oliver Hartwich to The Centre for Independent Studies 'Consilium' conference In previous years Dr Oliver Hartwich spoke at The Centre for Independent Studies 'Consilium' conference about the future of capitalism and about Europe's economic and social decline. His presentation to this month's gathering in Queensland is closely linked to these topics. Read more