The Treasury economic forecasts for May budgets are usually settled in April to feed into the fiscal forecasts and, critically, the borrowing program. They can be changed in the interim six weeks if ...

We talk about 2 percent inflation, when we mean 2 percent annual inflation or inflation is 2 percent per annum (p.a.). Leave out the time dimension and add to the confusion between stock and flow. * ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

The turmoil in the world economy from Trump’s attack on Iran will delay New Zealand’s economic recovery. Back in 1993 I was perhaps the first to announce that the economy seemed to be in recovery. The ...

A Rogernome Defends the Policies. One of the difficulties in making sense of what happened during the Rogernomics Stagnation from 1985 to 1993 is that professional economists sympathetic to its ...

It is difficult to make sense of the Luxon Coalition Government’s economic management. This end-of-year review about the state of economic management – the state of the economy was last week – is not ...

Does the Autumn 2024 British budget point to a change in fiscal strategies? Many countries found their fiscal position was unsustainable, following the 2008 Global Financial Crash. Their public ...

In too many areas we are avoiding thinking about or preparing for oncoming changes. About a decade ago I had a ‘Lambton Quay’ conversation with an environment policy advisor. For those who do not live ...

We may regret we have not put enough effort into building resilience. I was wrong when I argued that the Muldoon Government should have hiked petrol tax to ration petrol when it ran short following ...

Implementing the New Zealand Health and Disability System review not only involves major technical problems but creates fascinating political tensions. The government is promising to redisorganise the ...