In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Polonius’s sage advice to his son about friendship was: “Neither a borrower nor a lender be For loan oft loses both itself and friend. In contrast, borrowing and lending between complete strangers makes the world a better place. Read more
Given the troubles of Europe’s welfare states, it is hard to deny that large public sectors have a negative impact on economic growth. Where government grows too big it crowds out private activity, redirects resources from productive to unproductive uses, and stifles the economy with extra regulation and bureaucracy. Read more
Fiscal surpluses are in sight, export prices are extraordinarily high relative to import prices, national income growth prospects look brighter than for many years, and this is a general election year. This sets the stage for unsustainable increases in government spending - or for tax cuts or some combination of the two. Read more
Two years ago, when the New Zealand Business Roundtable merged with the New Zealand Institute to form The New Zealand Initiative, there were a fair share of people who wondered how these organisations would merge. Both were research organisations that had been headed by well-respected economists, the late Roger Kerr and David Skilling, who were perceived to come from opposite sides of the ideological spectrum. Read more
The recipe for growth is well-known. Most economists would agree that lower taxes and less regulation can encourage entrepreneurship and job creation. Read more
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
Dr Oliver Hartwich interviews "Teaching Stars" co-author Rose Patterson 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
An intern's perspective on working at a think tank 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