Reports & Media

We should not pay through the roof for small safety benefits, argues Bryce Wilkinson How would you react to being told that government regulations have added 50 percent to the cost of replacing a tin roof on a house? I ask because a long-standing professional builder told me in a chance encounter shortly before Christmas that scaffolding requirements under the Health and Safety in Employment Act 1992 mean that a small re-roofing job that would have otherwise cost $4,000 may now cost $6,000. Read more

In my last column of 2014, I wrote that European leaders usually pick the least appealing policy option and still manage to make it worse (A Greek olive branch for Steve Keen, 18 December). Maybe that was a premature assessment. Read more

Oh, the perils of the silly season. If your office is typical, you’re in a mad dash trying to finish everything that needs to be done before Christmas. Read more

In a series of articles earlier this year, we introduced Insights readers to some basic ideas from the wonderful world of economics. Today, we are releasing the compilation of pieces in a short pamphlet, The ABC of Economic Literacy. Read more

For anyone who has used Uber, knows someone who has used it, or is aware it exists, the crowd consensus seems to be that it is pretty great. Uber, which recently entered the New Zealand market, is an app that offers an alternative to taxis by allowing users to order a driver to get them to their destination for a set price. Read more

Only until a couple of years ago, it would have been unthinkable to suggest that New Zealand could hold some policy lessons for Australia, let alone that it could be seen as a model that Australia might wish to emulate. Australians had become used to regarding New Zealanders as their poorer cousins. Read more

When you publish a report with the title Poverty of Wealth: Why minerals need to be part of the rural economy, it is best to prepare yourself for some strong responses to your work, and to quickly grow a thick skin. Feedback from green groups, politicians, officials, and the online communities who populate the comments sections of various websites are all obvious sources of critical feedback. Read more

America got a little bit crazier this week. I’m not talking about the Ferguson riots, round two, which make me ever-grateful that New Zealand maintains an unarmed constabulary. Read more

“A change-over from an increasing to a declining population may be very disastrous,” John Maynard Keynes once reflected. This may be so, but a declining working-age population could prove even worse. Read more