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. * ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

The Minister of Finance says it is but, parochialism aside, are we doing anything to ensure it really is? One of the necessary skills of a politician is to hold on to at least two contradictory ...

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 ...

This review of ‘Conversations about our country with Jim Bolger’ by David Cohen was first published in the ‘NZ International Review’ (September/October 2021) p.29-31. James Brendan Bolger presents a ...

Is there a German word for the feeling you get when someone famous dies who created glorious, uplifting art, or music or oratory or cover drives but whom you never met but wished you had? Wished and ...

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 ...

Legitimate pressures on government spending suggest we are going to have to raise total tax revenue or suffer a poorer quality New Zealand. About a decade ago, I was on the external Treasury panel ...