Monthly Archives: June 1998

Law Of the Jungle: Is Ours a Market Raw in Tooth and Claw?

This entry was posted in Governance, Listener on by .

Listener 20 June 1998.

Keywords: Governance;

Given East Asian financial corruption, we may ponder on the probity of New Zealand. It is often argued that government interventions generate manipulation and corruption. Compared to other rich OECD nations, New Zealand’s market interventions before 1984 were high (although by Eastern European and developing world standards they were not). But even by OECD standards, New Zealand’s level of corruption seems to have been low. Of course there was some, not all of it was exposed. Even so a myriad of opportunities were not seized upon.

Notes for a Presentation on Maori Exporting

This entry was posted in Business & Finance, Globalisation & Trade, Growth & Innovation, Maori on by .

Presentation to a TPK seminar. June 1998.

Keywords: Business & Finance; Globalisation & Trade; Growth & Innovation; Maori;

The Maori economy has made exceptional progress in recent years. Preliminary figures from the 1996 Population Census show that the numbers of Maori employed have grown considerably faster than the Maori adult population, and that additional employment has tended to be in the better quality jobs: more at the managerial level, more involving greater skills. Job growth has also been strong in those industries to which the Maori has given priority: agriculture, forestry, fishing, and tourism. (See the attached table.) In summary the Maori Development Strategy of upgrading Maori skills, increasing Maori work experience, and emphasising Maori business in key growth industries has been extremely successful.

In the Abstract: Will Most Of Us Have an Impoverished Retirement?

This entry was posted in Retirement & Savings, Social Policy on by .

Listener June 6, 1998.

Keywords: Social Policy;

I would like to recommend Cornell economics professor Richard Thaler’s The Winner’s Curse: Paradoxes and Anomalies of Economic Life, which describes thirteen general anomalies where the standard economic theory of individual behaviour is contradicted by the evidence. Together they present a serious challenge to the “economic rationalism” which is used to justify so much of recent economic policy. But as important as the book is, many general readers will find it difficult, for it requires a modicum of standard economic theory and/or mathematics to follow some of the intricacies of its arguments. If you can tackle this level of abstraction, do read the book. Or give it to that undergraduate economist nephew who is already obnoxiously telling you how to run your life.

Is the Rma Sustainable?: the Politics Of the Coase Theorem.

This entry was posted in Environment & Resources, Listener on by .

Planning Quarterly June 1998, p.5-8, A revised version of a keynote address to the 1998 NZPI Annual Conference, Dunedin.

Keywords: Taxation & Regulation

The Resource Management Act (RMA) is based upon numerous, often conflicting, notions. Among them was an economic analysis which derives from a theorem first proposed by Ronald Coase who received an economics prize in honour of Alfred Nobel, for this and other key insights which are the foundation of the modern subject of law and economics. The Coase theorem was important in many of the reforms of the 1980s, including the RMA. I will explain why this powerful theorem is important, how it relates to resource management and the RMA, and then I will reverse its use to obtain insights on recent attempts to reform the RMA and draw some conclusions about the role of planning.