The New Zealand Initiative hosted Stephen Jennings for a dinner lecture on Thursday 14 July 2016, in Auckland. Jennings, the Taranaki-born economist and investor, has spent the past 24 years outside New Zealand. Read more
With most major political parties in favour of scrapping urban growth boundaries, land use regulations have captured a fair number of headlines over the past few weeks. And well they should. Read more
Our Research Fellow, Jason Krupp, talks to Larry Williams on Newstalk ZB about restrictions on land and where people are allowed to build. Read more
New inequality statistics are a bit like Pavlov’s bell. Even the hint of them can induce salivation – regardless of whether the meal winds up being meaty in the end. Read more
With just about everyone proffering advice to post-Brexit Britain, it is unlikely the country will pay attention to this piece. And nor should it, given that Britain will soon be truly free to thumb its nose at advice givers. Read more
What is the difference between Austria and Australia? Well, when the Austrians recently went to the polls to elect a new president, procedures were so flawed that their Constitutional Court told them to hold the election again. Read more
Do you feel like hissing at the people at the front of the plane when you walk past them to the cheaper seats at the back? If you are in the first class seats, do you cringe as people walk past you? Read more
There was a whiff of Monty Python about the Brexit referendum. In Life of Brian, the People’s Front of Judea asks the famous question: “What have the Romans ever done for us?” As it turns out, very little – apart from providing Judea with sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, public health and peace. Read more
‘Teach a man to fish, and he’ll eat for life. Give him someone else’s fish, and he’ll vote for you.’ Politicians obviously know about this saying. Read more
If you are above 40, I hope you would have built some financial net worth through hard work and thrift. And if you are under 40, I hope that at least you aspire to build up some savings for a more comfortable retirement. Read more
Imagine if you were buying your first home and the only information you had was what you could see from the outside and through the windows. It may seem odd, but this is largely what happens in our public schools. Read more
It is hard to improve without knowing what better and worse performance look like. Teachers grade students, but who grades the graders? Read more
Our Research Fellow, Martine Udahemuka, talks to Radio New Zealand about our new report, Signal loss: what we know about school performance. Read more
Our Executive Director, Dr Oliver Hartwich, talks to SBS Radio about Brexit (in German). Read more