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 ...

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 ...

What Was the Prime Minister Reading in the Runup to Election Year? It’s the summer break. Everyone settles down with family, books, the sun and some fishing. But the Prime Minister has a pile of ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 book I am currently working on – tentative title ‘In Open Seas’ – looks at the current and future New Zealand. One chapter describes the policy towards Covid using the trope of warfare. It covers ...

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 ...

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 ...

Trying to organise the electricity system around a competition model based on financial markets does not make sense. Four centuries ago, theologians wondered how public virtue could be generated from ...

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 ...