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INCOME DISTRIBUTION: PART II

A Study of Economic Reform: The Case of New Zealand,, edited Brian Silverstone, Alan Bollard, and Ralph Lattimore, (North Holland Books: 1996) pp.101-138.
Note: This item was so big it is in two parts. Income Distribution: Part I

Keywords: Distributional Economics;

21st January 1996 | Comments Closed

INCOME DISTRIBUTION: PART I

A Study of Economic Reform: The Case of New Zealand,, edited Brian Silverstone, Alan Bollard, and Ralph Lattimore, (North Holland Books: 1996) pp.101-138.
Note: This item was so big it is in two parts. Income Distribution: Part II

Keywords: Distributional Economics;

1. INTRODUCTION

There is a widespread belief that a major consequence of the economic reforms of the 1980s and 1990s was increased economic inequality. As will become evident, this overall conclusion is correct, even if the mechanisms which generate the inequality are somewhat more complex than popular views articulate. We can trace these mechanisms in theory using Diagram 1. The rest of the paper assesses their strength and direction.

| Comments Closed

ECONOMIST OF THE YEAR?

Choose Yours from this List of Possible Contenders
Listener: 13 January 1996

Keywords: Miscellaneous;

I am occasionally asked about “the economist of the year”, an award which is announced each November. Most people have not heard of it because it is very a business sector thing, sponsored by some commercial firms, selected by a committee appointed by the firms, with very vague terms of references. Not surprisingly the award tends to be idiosyncratic, and the newspapers are right to almost ignore it. Such oddities are not confined to New Zealand. The Nobel Prize in economics was never awarded to Joan Robinson, a major figure in three mid-century economic theory revolutions, apparently because one member of the committee vetoed her. Taste and judgement are so important. Rarely is a decision authoritative.

13th January 1996 | Comments Closed

ECONOMIC REFORM: PARALLELS AND DIVERGENCES

by Brian Easton and Rolf Gerritsen

The Great Experiment edited by F. Castles, R. Gerritsen & J. Vowles (AUP:1996), p.22-47.

Keywords: Governance; Political Economy & History;

Introduction

The Labour governments of the 1980s were the first in Australasia to be forced to come to grips with the increased ‘globalisation’ of their economies-that is, the effect upon them of growing international integration of both capital and goods and services markets. This globalisation, it has been argued (cf. Kurzer 1991; Lee & McKenzie 1989; Notermans 1993), has exerted an inexorable pressure for a convergence towards economic policy-making that removes barriers to free-market mechanisms. Globalisation and greater international competition-as the 1970s oil shocks ended the post-war long boom-supposedly made traditional social democratic economic policy difficult if not impossible (Scharpf 1991). Redistributive, interventionist and expansionary strategies could no longer be employed without supposedly fatally undermining aggregate macroeconomic performance.

3rd January 1996 | Comments Closed