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The great legacy of the reforms of the 1980s and 1990s were the durable institutions that have since guided how we are governed. The Fiscal Responsibility Act set a framework for balanced budgets that has withstood many changes in government. Read more
Freshwater management is a tough political problem. Any substantive reduction in the nutrient load in too many of our rivers will require significant land use changes – and changes in wastewater practices in some towns. Read more
If there’s one line in the 1967 classic film The Graduate that has aged poorly, it might be Mr McGuire’s advice to a young Dustin Hoffman to find his future in plastics. Now, just over 50 years later, plastics are more commonly cast as retro at best, and an environmental menace otherwise. Read more
Lost in the government’s response to the Interim Climate Change Committee this week was the decision to put on ice its 100% renewable electricity policy to focus on other more effective measures. It is hard to overstate the significance of this decision. Read more
Maybe things would be different if somebody had 'invented' prices. We tend not to understand and appreciate institutions, like prices, that emerge spontaneously through human interaction rather than are the product of human design. Read more
Parables, biblical or otherwise, are excellent instruction. They warn of the dangers of getting what you wish for. Read more
If politics makes it hard to change a policy after it is announced, then testing policies before they are announced has potentially huge benefits. Testing is particularly important in climate change policy as policies vary enormously in performance, and governments have a particularly hard time in backing away from environmental policies that do not work. Read more
It has been four weeks since the Interim Climate Change Committee (ICCC) delivered to Minister James Shaw its analysis of the government’s 100% renewable electricity policy. If reports from a conference presentation given by the committee’s chair in April are correct, the results are not kind to the government’s commitment. Read more
Professor Gary Libecap is something of a god in economics. In a prior life, I would tell my undergraduate students about the pantheon of the Econ Gods. Read more
New Zealand’s freshwater management is in need of a refresh. The kinds of systems that work for allocating and managing water when water is abundant are not the systems that work when water becomes increasingly scarce. Read more