OPINION

To understand competition, you should visit a tropical rainforest. To most visitors, rainforests, with their impressive fauna and flora, may look like places of abundance. Read more

Over the past decades, being a shareholder in Rheinisch-Westfälisches Elektrizitätswerk AG, one of Europe’s largest utility companies, was a pleasurable thing. Recessions and upswings came and went, but one thing was certain: each financial year, RWE would post a decent profit. Read more

Expect to hear a chorus of grumbling from various parts of New Zealand on Thursday when the Reserve Bank is set to hike the Official Cash Rate (OCR) for the first time in almost four years. The move is not a foregone conclusion, but with the market "90 per cent" confident of a 25-basis point hike (plus all the throat clearing, nudging, and winking that has been coming from No 2 The Terrace over the past few months), a bump-up in the interest rate is pretty much guaranteed. Read more

Teaching stars: transforming the education profession, our third education report, aroused suspicion, emotion and attention when we released it this week. We dared to say those two terrible words: performance pay. Read more

This week, the Ministry of Education – in partnership with the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment – released their Tertiary Education Strategy for 2014-19. The overarching aim of the strategy is to create better linkages between education and employment, especially in ensuring the skills and competencies of graduates meet the changing demands of the labour market. Read more

It is a wonderful convenience to be able to buy almost anything we want, offering nothing in exchange but flimsy paper or an electronic claim on our bank account. We experience this convenience every time we go to the supermarket and pay by cash, ATM or credit card. Read more

Malta must be an exceptionally well-governed country. In the latest Eurobarometer opinion poll, only 53 per cent of Maltese said they tended not to trust their political parties. Read more

Last week the QS World University Rankings by Subject were released, highlighting the top 200 universities in the world for individual academic subjects. With as much grandeur and status as the Oscars (or the Rugby World Cup), these rankings are considered to be highly influential worldwide in signalling the quality and reputation of universities. Read more

The New Zealand economy is undoubtedly in good shape but not all the factors behind the boom can or should be sustained indefinitely. This raises two questions: How much is temporary? Read more

Few economists are more famous than the Scotsman commonly regarded as the founder of economics, Adam Smith (1723-1790). On one hand this is understandable and much deserved: Smith’s An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776) is the book that established economics as an academic discipline. Read more

The Wellington City Council this week started holding community meetings over plans to introduce cycle lanes across large parts of Wellington, with the aim of making cycling safer. The move has been backed by an editorial from Green Party MP Julie Anne Genter, an adviser to Mayor Celia Wade Brown, who claims bike-only lanes could lift the percentage of people cycling from about 2.6 per cent in 2006 to 7 per cent – on par with Portland Oregon. Read more

As we discussed in a previous issue of Insights, New Zealand is rated as one of the most congested countries in the world, according to the figures in the latest Tom Tom Traffic Index. The Amsterdam-based navigation company’s data shows that despite very small urban areas and a low population base, travelling in Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch takes 31.3 per cent longer than it should, based on the optimal carrying capacity of the roading infrastructure. Read more

There are a few relationships in economics that are almost set in stone, with the odd exception to the rule. If supply increases, prices fall. Read more

In the for-and-against debate surrounding compact cities and their impact on housing affordability, Auckland and its Unitary Plan stand out as an oddity. The compact city term lacks a clear definition, but if you look for commonalities across the literature and practical examples of this urban form, two policy outcomes repeat themselves: urban growth restrictions and higher population densities. Read more

It is often said that tax is the price we pay for a civilised society. Indeed, taxes are necessary to fund key public services, including defence, law and order, the courts, border controls, civil defence, foreign affairs, public administration generally, and a contestably lengthy list of other potentially worthy activities of a collective nature. Read more