Monthly Archives: May 2004

Don’t Tell Anyone

This entry was posted in Growth & Innovation, Listener, Macroeconomics & Money on by .

International experts give New Zealand’s economy the thumbs-up, but the media fail to bring it to public attention.
Listener: 29 May, 2004.

Keywords: Growth & Innovation; Macroeconomics & Money;

A Fulbright New Zealand grant enabled me to visit a number of research colleagues in the US, including the IMF team that visited New Zealand in February. The International Monetary Fund has a programme of annual consultations with its member countries in which the economy and economic management are reviewed. The focus of our Washington meeting was on some mutual research interests, but the team mentioned that their New Zealand review would be published the following day. Early the next morning, I scanned the websites to see what our journalists made of the report.

830 New Zealanders (review)

This entry was posted in Listener, Miscellaneous, Political Economy & History on by .

A STRANGE OUTCOME: The remarkable survival of a Polish child by John Roy-Woljciechowski and Allan Parker.

Listener: 22 May, 2004.

Keywords: Miscellaneous; Political Economy & History;

One of the proudest letters any New Zealand Prime Minister wrote was by Peter Fraser in 1943, beginning, “With reference to our discussion concerning the reception of Polish refugee children in New Zealand … I have to inform you that the New Zealand Government would be very willing to afford the hospitality in New Zealand to a total number … of 500-700.”

Rgdp And/or Rgdi: the Impact Of the Terms Of Trade

This entry was posted in Statistics on by .

This is an addition to The Impact of International Price Discrepancies on PPP-adjusted GDP and expands on material in Estimating Production and Income Across Nations: Reconciling the Differences: the New Zealand Experience .

Keywords: Statistics;

While the nominal output of an economy, usually called ‘Gross Domestic Product’ or GDP is exactly the same whether it is measured by what is produced or how it is disposed – on the production side or the expenditure side of the economy. This occurs because the incomes the expenditure generates exactly matches the outlays (including investments) the incomes finance. However this mathematical congruency does not apply when a different set of prices is applied to the production and expenditure sides of an open economy, even if the prices are consistent. The difference arises because the goods and services consumed in an open economy differ from that which is produced because some of the domestic production is exchanged for foreign production, that is it is exported to in exchange for imports. The ratio of the exchange values can vary, and that leads to the difference when, for instance, constant price GDP estimates are made over time. This exchange ratio can be measured as the ration of export prices over import prices. Note that the exchange rate does not directly influence the terms of trade ratio, providing the prices are measured either in the local currency or the international currency.

The Determinants Of GDP Growth Rates: Reviewing a Study

This entry was posted in Growth & Innovation, Statistics on by .

Keywords: Growth & Innovation; Statistics;

Sources of Economic Growth in New Zealand: A Comparative Analysis is a paper attached to the latest IMF review of the New Zealand economy, prepared by Abdelhak Senhadji who was one of the IMF review team. It is on the IMF website After reviewing the record of New Zealand’s slow growth performance it presents a (reduced form) econometric equation which attempts to provide quantitative estimates of various influences on New Zealand’s poor performance. This paper reviews the study.

Nor Any Drop to Drink: Should We Be More Systematic with Water Property Rights?

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

Listener: 15 May, 2004.

Keywords: Environment & Resources;

Energy is ultimately the key to sustainability, but the first civilisations were based on water. In some cases, the quality water supplies ran out, perhaps from rising salt in irrigated soil, and the civilisation died. This threat is not peculiar to the past. There are great lakes in the middle of Asia dying from mismanagement, African countries dispute over water from the Nile, and even the US and Australia have major water systems that are disappearing or the soil is suffering from excess salt, with serious economic consequences.

External Impacts and the NZ Economic Growth Rate

This entry was posted in Growth & Innovation, Macroeconomics & Money on by .

Prepared May 2004, with thanks to Les Oxley.

Keywords: Growth & Innovation; Macroeconomics & Money;

This paper is an econometric successor to my 1997 book In Stormy Seas, and my 2004 lecture The Development of the New Zealand Economy. I pointed out there that post-war New Zealand GDP grew at broadly the same rate as the rest of the OECD except to the extent the export sector experienced changes in profitability indicated by the terms of trade and the real exchange rate.

Essays from Washington

This entry was posted in Miscellaneous on by .

On occasions while in visiting Washington as a Fulbright Distinguished Scholar in April and May 2004, I wrote items, sometimes almost full essays – often with an hour of returning home – about some of my experiences to send to friends. There are published here.

Keywords: Miscellaneous;

The Pro-abortion Anti-Bush(?) Demonstration
Mont Vernon: George Washington’s Farm
The House Agriculture Committee
Yevgeny Yevtushenko
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
The Mayas At the National Gallery
Freedom Park
Shakespeare in America
 The Baghdad Times

The Public Domain: Who Will ”Own” the Foreshore?

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

Listener: 1 May 2004.

Keywords: Environment & Resources; Maori;

Property rights – the rights to use, transform and transfer (sell) a resource – is a better term than “ownership” because there are so many aspects to them and different groups can share the rights. An effective market needs a clear and comprehensive definition of those property rights. The economic reforms of the 1980s clarified many. Sometimes the outcomes were paradoxical. The largest ever nationalisation in dollar terms was by Rogernomes, for the government first had to own State Insurance before it could privatise it. But property rights continue to trouble us.

enhancing Income Generation Through Adult Education, a Comparative Study.

This entry was posted in Education on by .

Edited by Richard G. Bagnall, (The Asia-South Pacific Bureau of Adult Education, 2003).

Keywords: Education;

One of the hardest questions that advanced education is facing is its role in vocational training.
As it gargantuan appetite for funds began absorbing an increasing proportion of national output, some educationalists seized upon the thesis that education contributes to economic growth so an
the investment in it would pay for itself. This is so well accepted, that to say that the thesis is a
hypothesis with little empirical underpinning would leave many educationalists puzzled (although one might add that this is true for most statement about economic growth – it is surprising how little we know about the causes of economic growth: most expressed certainties are hypotheses). The most extremist version of this view is that public education is only about contributing to economic growth, a position which largely drove New Zealand’s tertiary education reforms of the early nineties, and from which the system is still recovering. But the view that commerce and growth is central to education is now so widespread that it is rarely challenged.