BBC Russian

HER MAJESTY THE CONSUMER

The producer is no longer king.
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Listener: 29 December, 2007.
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Keywords: Business & Finance;
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It�s been a long way from the Agricultural Development Council (ADC) of 1963 to last month�s Primary Industries Summit � in both time and head space.
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The ADC focused on the pastoral sector. In those days, dairy, meat and wool made up almost 90 percent [...]

PUBLIC DEBATE? YEAH, RIGHT

Current economic debate rarely extends beyond hearsay and uninformed opinion.�
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Listener: 15 December, 2007.�
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Keywords: History of Ideas, Methodology & Philosophy; Political Economy & History;�
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Thirty years ago, a large majority of New Zealand economists argued for greater use of the market to regulate the economy. Prime Minister Rob Muldoon was sympathetic, but after almost losing the 1978 [...]

RECESSION PROCESSION

Ignore the happy brigade. The forces of recession are already in motion.�
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Listener: 1 December, 2007.�
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Keywords: Macroeconomics & Money;�
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Larry Summers, the best economist ever to have been Secretary of the US Treasury, points out that major international financial crises occur about every three or four years. The last � the Enron bust � was five years [...]

WHAT DOES �HOLLOWING OUT OF THE ECONOMY� MEAN?

This note was prepared for some colleagues.
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Keywords: Distributional Economics;� Growth & Innovation;
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Th phrase �hollowing out� is often used to cover a multitude of poorly thought through ideas which have lots of rhetoric but perhaps not much intellectual content. Here I am going to try to give the notion some analytical rigour to the [...]

GROW FOR GOLD

Rising food prices look set to continue.�
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Listener: 17 November, 2007.�
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Keywords: Globalisation & Trade; �
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The boom in dairy product prices is a consequence partly of overseas drought and partly of Americans using their maize to make biofuels, leaving less for their cows. The same condition is depressing the price of meat as farmers slaughter cattle at [...]

TANIWHA SPRINGS

This was a draft an affidavit I prepared for the Environment Court. in November 2007. It was rules out as not relevant to the proceedings. It is included here because it shows an ingenious method for valuing physical resources in some instances.
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Keywords: Environment & Resources;� Maori;
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Introduction
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My name is Brian Henry Easton. I am an [...]

IS INEQUALITY REALLY INCREASING FROM GLOBALISATION?

The Weekend Herald of November 10, 2007 devoted three pages, to a Newsweek article which was strong on anecdote and opinion and weak on analysis and facts. I submitted the following note. They took a fortnight to tell me they had more important things to deal with.
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Keywords: Distributional Economics; Globalisation & Trade;
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The Newsweek article �The [...]

GO FIGURE

The fine art of spotting creative accounting
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Listener: 3 November, 2007.
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Keywords: Business & Finance;
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Ian Cross, a former editor of the Listener, says I was one of only two commentators who warned in early 1987 that shares were overpriced. But even if I predicted the 1987 sharemarket crash � albeit not its timing � I didn�t get [...]

MAKING MAJURO

Visit to the Marshall Islands.�
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Listener: 20 October, 2007.�
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Keywords: Globalisation & Trade;�
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The Marshall Islands are due north of New Zealand � about eight hours� flying time on an RNZAF 757. I was there recently on the annual Pacific Mission led by Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters, who takes a team of New Zealanders around selected Pacific [...]

Brian Easton