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Healthy competition is a key driver of efficiency gains. It forces businesses to focus on meeting customer needs better than anyone else. Read more

This year, HSBC asked over 7,000 ex pats in 37 countries how they felt about the attractiveness of their host countries from a financial, quality of life and child-raising perspective. The results – many of which may seem surprising – were released early this month. Read more

It was disappointing to see the New Zealand Wind Energy Association fire a broadside at the government this week, claiming pro-fossil fuel policy settings are leaving our economy behind in a world increasingly dominated by renewables. The opinion piece suggested we need to look to countries like Germany, which is on track to generate 30 per cent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2030. Read more

Oscar Wilde once suggested that “Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life”, but had he wanted to describe the business of art he would have probably turned to the science of economics. At face value, it would seem art and economics have very little in common, but upon second glance, the apparently fickle nature of the art market is well explained by economic rationale. Read more

Simon Cowan, at last weekend’s Liberty & Society conference, addressed the pressing issue of Australia’s ballooning federal expenditure and the huge economic and social impact this will have if spending isn’t curbed soon. The elephant in the room that Cowan, a research fellow at the Centre for Independent Studies, is referring to is Australia’s dwindling economic growth, an ageing population and the rapidly rising healthcare and pension costs associated with the demographic shift. Read more

It was both unsurprising but interesting to open the paper this week and see the proposed Otaki Expressway in the headlines again. Unsurprising because the NZ Transport Agency (NZTA) is currently having its resource consent heard for the proposed road, but interesting because of the way the NZTA lawyers are pitching the project. Read more

The idea of a living wage is not new. New Zealand’s Arbitration Court determined in November 1936 that a basic weekly wage of £3.16s for an adult male would be sufficient to maintain a husband, wife, and three children in a fair and reasonable standard of comfort. Read more

One of the major downsides of the 2008 financial crisis has been the re-emergence of ‘macro-prudential’ regulation. This sort of regulation, hoping to limit systemic risk in the banking sector, is currently fashionable but signals a return to the 1970s mentality of economic fine-tuning, albeit with different tools. Read more

When New Zealand First leader Winston Peters delivered his ‘Supercity of Sin’ speech last Friday, it was a frontal assault on Chinese migration. Despite his protestations that he and his party were not anti-China, or even anti-migration, the dog-whistling was all too clear. Read more