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When asked whether they own their home or rent, some people with a mortgage like to joke that the bank really owns it. If you don’t make your mortgage instalment, the bank can, in the limit, take the house away. Read more

If politicians could make companies more productive and innovative by decree, they would have done so a long time ago. That did not stop the previous government from actively trying to steer companies’ research and development activities. Read more

The government plans to build 100,000 ‘affordable’ houses in the next 10 years. How much greater is the housing stock likely to be in 10, 15 or 20 years as a result? Read more

I know that people who aren’t economists manage to raise kids and that it all seems to work out in the end, but I’m not entirely sure how. I have learned that standard practice in the Crampton household diverges a bit from practice elsewhere. Read more

Is it possible to have too both too much and too little of something at the same time? This may sound like a problem posed by quantum physics but the question arises with something much more prosaic: bus drivers. Read more

The candles have barely dimmed since his last birthday and we’re already celebrating Karl Marx’s 200th birthday, capitalism’s arch-critic. Over the past couple of centuries, capitalism has come to dominate a large part of the Western world. Read more

The two most exciting items in this year’s budget barely even made it into the budget tables. Both point toward better fiscal futures. Read more

Government spending decisions can be popular or unpopular; they can be justified and unjustified. We all like to criticise the government for unjustified spending to increase its popularity. Read more

The best thing about budgets in New Zealand is that they are just a little bit boring. Our fiscal conventions ensure big changes are telegraphed well in advance. Read more