The expectation was that the rule of law would continue to underpin the world order. Trump has repeatedly and unashamedly flouted that framework, instead pursuing ‘might is right' while overlooking ...

The ACT party election manifesto will propose to introduce a Regulatory Standards Act to set a higher bar for new regulation, and test regulations against the key principles of the Regulatory ...

A close analysis of the Treasury assessment of the Medium Term in its PREFU 2023 suggests the economy may be entering a new phase. Last week I explained that the forecasts in the just published ...

This is a column about MAGA – Make America Great Again. But as a prequel I scroll back sixty years to when I was teaching in England. I have fond memories of the students – bright and personable as ...

This year’s Nobel awards in economics raise critical issues about the future of the world. I was not alone with high hopes when the Soviet Union collapsed. It has been good to see various nations ...

New Zealand is a small, isolated nation and needs to design itself accordingly. We should avoid uncritically imitating larger nations. Among the news websites I read is a British daily which once a ...

This column started out to explain how the proposed structural outsourcing of public surgery was partly a consequence of the peculiarities of our fiscal borrowing practices. In summary, the ...

New Zealand has ‘Scandinavian ambitions in terms of quality of life, but a US attitude to tax’: Lara Clark. One of the most perceptive remarks about New Zealand’s fiscal tension was made by former ...

It is the professionalism – competence and integrity – of the doctors, nurses and technicians who provide the care which obscures the managerial failure. The column-blog, Otaihanga Second Opinion is ...

Winning office is not the same as achieving change. A recent Economist columnist divided politicians and their political advisers into either ‘jock wankers’ or ‘nerd wankers’. It’s a distinction which ...

In this column I use the less familiar measure of GDP per capita instead of the GDP measure favoured by the commentariat. I became familiar with it when I began doing international comparisons because ...

On election night 2020 the sense of triumph around Labour was palpable, the grins as wide as the Waikato. Today’s Budget is why. After years of compromise, contradiction and incompetence, this is the ...