OPINION

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If I were a cynic, I would now be predicting the next European bailout recipient. And the winner is… Slovenia! Read more

Not all teachers in Singapore desire to rise through the ranks to head of department (HoD) or beyond. Many are content to stay in the classroom, branding themselves as HOT – happy, ordinary teachers. Read more

It is commonplace for businesses to complain that the Resource Management Act has become a costly bureaucratic nightmare hindering economic development. Ironically, such complaints are often dismissed as evidence of the Act working, with consents being declined or heavily qualified to adequately protect the environment. Read more

Standing atop Mount Victoria last Sunday, looking over Wellington basked in glorious sunshine, I was quietly confirming to myself that I really wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. Not in Germany where I grew up. Read more

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Last week, I gave a speech to Auckland University’s economics club called The never-ending Euro crisis – Anatomy of an economic policy disaster. It was a wide-ranging presentation in which I covered the history and pre-history of European monetary union, Europe’s fiscal and monetary problems, the eurozone’s governance issues and their political implications. Read more

This week, The New Zealand Initiative released its first report: New Zealand’s Global Links: Foreign Ownership and the Status of New Zealand’s Net International Investments. The report contains 84 tables of statistical information relating to New Zealand’s inwards and outwards investments, and is accompanied by a spreadsheet on the website. Read more

It is often the case that reports by the Ministry of Economic Development (and now its successor, the rather pretentiously named Ministry for Business, Employment, and Innovation or MBIE) recommend further government interference in economic activities in the name of ‘helping business.' The much-vaunted ‘business growth agenda’ of the government, which few people outside of Wellington have heard of, has suffered from this fate. So it is refreshing to see an interesting and useful report into regional economic development being released by the Ministry. Read more

Some Australian politicians believe sacking the bottom 5% of teachers is the answer to improving student achievement. Last week in Melbourne, I interviewed academics at a number of universities, researchers at the Australian Council of Education Research (ACER), media commentators, and think tank researchers. Read more

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In September last year, I wrote about the German constitutional court’s preliminary ruling on the legality of the European Stability Mechanism (Has Germany’s court set the stage for an exit? 20 September 2012). Read more

The economics of the opposition’s plan to introduce a single-buyer model for wholesale electricity is highly dubious, as I explain in my column in The National Business Review today. But that’s not the only questionable thing about it. Read more

As good news continues to emerge about the government’s fiscal position leading into the budget, it is worthwhile reminding ourselves of recent reforms that put New Zealand into an internationally enviable position. Primarily, the government’s response to the global financial crisis was to make it easier to employ people, keep them employed, and keep more of their own money. Read more