The notion of ‘market failure’ used here is a bit naive. No market works perfectly so every market fails to meet the benchmark of the ideal. Taken superficially, the IMF argument that IP can be ...

Since US president Donald Trump was elected for a second term, New Zealand has taken a ‘Homer in the Hedge’ approach to its foreign policy in relation to America. Like the famous meme from The ...

Shane Jones is committed to state-led economic development. New Zealand First and ACT sit further apart on the economics spectrum than do Labour and National. On other parts of the policy spectrum the ...

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 ...

The tensions between different approaches to the economy are surfacing as the election nears. As we head towards next year’s election, the tensions between the coalition partners are becoming ...

We should follow the Golden Rule of Fiscal Management and not borrow for consumption in the medium run. Asymmetry is a crucial, but often ignored, feature of credit transactions. You would normally be ...

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 ...

Do we need bigger multipurpose government mega-departments? Restructuring seems to be the fashionable management practice whenever faced with a challenge. (Eminent health economist Alan Maynard’s ...

What are the economic and political implications if the New Zealand economy stagnates for five and more years? Prime Minister Christopher Luxon told Morning Report that ‘We've got the worst recession* ...

Angus Deaton’s ‘Economics in America’ challenges the direction that economics has taken. In 2015 Angus Deaton was the sole awardee of the Bank of Sweden’s Prize in Honour of Alfred Nobel, for his ...

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 ...

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 ...