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. * ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

While there have been decades of complaints – from all sides – about the workings of the Resource Management Act (RMA), replacing is proving difficult. The Coalition Government is making another ...

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 ...

The “team of five million” has become a well-worn but still powerful call to arms in the past 18 months as Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and Director-General of Health Ashley Bloomfield have tried to ...

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 ...

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 ...

We should begin by properly acknowledging loss. The death of Act’s Port Waikato candidate, Neil Christensen, is a tragedy for his family and friends. Me tangi, kāpā ko te mate i te marama. However, ...

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 ...

The more informed an economist is, the more they keep their head down during elections. Elections are not a time to talk about economics in a serious way. Sure, politicians talk about the economy and ...