2022 Annual Report cover

2022 Annual Report

2022 marked a turning point in New Zealand’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic. The country reopened to international visitors in the middle of the year, and by the year’s end, most sectors of the economy got back to something close to business as usual. Read more

1 April, 2023
No Evidence No Evaluation No Exit cover

No Evidence, No Evaluation, No Exit - Lessons from the 'Modern Learning Environments' experiment

In 2011 the Ministry of Education embarked on a ten-year strategy to rejuvenate New Zealand’s aging classroom estate. Part of this strategy involved establishing large, open plan classrooms, populated by many more children than are found in cellular classrooms. The Ministry conducted no research on the effects of these ‘Modern learning Environments’ on students’ learning prior to compelling schools to adopt them. Read more

Dr Michael Johnston
Research Report
20 September, 2022
How Central Bank Mistakes after 2019 led to inflation Cover

How central bank mistakes after 2019 led to inflation

A research note released today by The New Zealand Initiative mainly attributes the outbreak of inflation in many economies to central bank mistakes. Co-authored by Graeme Wheeler, former Governor of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, and Bryce Wilkinson, Senior Research Fellow at The New Zealand Initiative, the paper argues that central banks overall: were too confident about their monetary policy framework; were too confident about their models; were too confident they could control output and employment; lost their focus on price stability and took on too many mandates; faced conflicts in some cases with conflicting ‘dual mandate’ objectives; and were distracted by extraneous political objectives, such as climate change. Read more

Dr Bryce Wilkinson
Graeme Wheeler
Research Note
26 July, 2022
Policy Point Faster trend Labour productivity growth cover

Policy Point: Faster trend Labour productivity growth after the ECA 1991

The New Zealand Initiative rebuts the Minister of Workplace Relations and Safety’s claim to a select committee that New Zealand’s labour productivity growth rate since 1991 was 46% below that of Australia. On figures recently supplied by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment, the correct figure was 30%. Read more

Dr Bryce Wilkinson
Policy Point
18 July, 2022
Policy Point Minister hopelessly ill informed on labour market statistics cover

Policy Point: Minister hopelessly ill-informed on labour market statistics

Last month, the Minister of Workplace Relations and Safety, Michael Wood, appeared before Parliament’s Education and Workforce Committee in support of the Government’s Fair Pay Agreement Bill. He was asked for his response to the New Zealand Initiative’s case that the wage rates were not showing a ‘race to the bottom,’ a decline in either employees’ share of income, or labour productivity growth since the Employment Contracts Act in 1991. Read more

Dr Bryce Wilkinson
Policy Point
5 July, 2022

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