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Media release: A Grades on Track to Overtake Bs at New Zealand Universities

Wellington (Tuesday, 25 November 2025) - A grades are now only a few years away from becoming the most common grade awarded at New Zealand universities, according to new analysis released today by The New Zealand Initiative. The research note, ‘Fifty Shades of Grades: Grade Compression at New Zealand Universities’, builds on the Initiative's August report, ‘Amazing Grades’, which identified a substantial rise in A grades as well as rising pass rates. Read more

Dr James Kierstead
Media release
25 November, 2025
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50 Shades of Grades: Grade Compression at New Zealand Universities

A grades are now only a few years away from becoming the most common grade awarded at New Zealand universities. The research note, ‘Fifty Shades of Grades: Grade Compression at New Zealand Universities’, builds on the Initiative's August report, ‘Amazing Grades’, which identified a substantial rise in A grades as well as rising pass rates. Read more

Dr James Kierstead
Research Note
25 November, 2025

The lever-pullers

Wellington has solved New Zealand’s 50-year productivity puzzle. According to a new 60-page joint briefing from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment and the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and Trade, the answer is simple. Read more

Roger Partridge
Insights Newsletter
21 November, 2025

Über-messy

On Monday, the Supreme Court ruled that four Uber drivers have actually been Uber employees all along. In the Court’s view, Uber had enough control over those drivers’ businesses that they couldn’t be considered contractors. Read more

Dr Eric Crampton
Insights Newsletter
21 November, 2025
2025 11 21 housing podcast

Podcast: Housing Affordability: NZ at the Global Policy Frontier (Part 1) - Clarity Emerging from the Mists

The opening episode traces the intellectual and personal journey that gave birth to the idea of "Competitive Urban Land Markets" (CLM). It follows Chris Parker’s path from his early attempt at NZIER to broaden traditional cost–benefit models so they could capture the transformative effects of infrastructure investment, to his move into Auckland Council as Chief Economist, where he began to see high land prices not as signs of prosperity but as symptoms of monopoly and institutional failure. Read more

Dr Eric Crampton
Chris Parker
21 November, 2025

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