Brian Easton

Oxford Review of Economic Policy, vol 10, no 3. pp.78-94 ( This article benefited from comments by Keith Jackson and John Martin, and from the symposium editor Gerry Holtham,)

Keywords: Growth & Innovation; History of Ideas, Methodology & Philosophy; Macroeconomics & Money;

I. Introduction

From 1984 to the early 1990s New Zealand undertook a major reform of the mechanisms used to govern the economy and the public administration. These reforms are often called ‘rogernomics’, after Roger Douglas, the Minister of Finance who instigated them, and the reformers are known as ‘rogernomes’. The reforms might be called the application of “economic rationalism”, which Michael Pusey defines as the “doctrine that says that markets and prices are the only reliable means of setting a value [for public purposes] on anything, and … that markets and money can always, at least in principle, deliver better outcomes than states and bureaucracies” (Pussey 1993:14, original’s italics).

Revised version of the prepared paper for the International Year of the Family, Family Rights and Responsibilities Symposium, 14-16 October, 1994 Wellington.

Keywords Distributional Economics; Social Policy

This is a paper about families with dependent children. (1) It ignores those which only adults, including independent children, and the broader issue of extended families, including whanau and hapu. The paper is further confined to only the economic aspects of the family with dependent children.