Brian Easton

Appendix 1 of TRANSFORMING NEW ZEALAND. This is a draft. Comments welcome.

Keywords: Growth & Innovation;

The growth debate in New Zealand assumes an appropriate economic target is per capita Gross Domestic Product, or GDP. This appendix pays little attention to the population dimension of the target, but it looks at, as intensively as space allows, GDP. Initially it explains what the concept is, what was the measure’s original purpose – understanding the business cycle, and how it became interpreted to have a broader meaning – as a measure of welfare. Then the chapter looks at some of the criticisms of the measure – most notably its coverage and its distribution. However far more important is the extent to which it actually measures a nation’s welfare. The evidence is that it does not.

New Zealand Studies, November 1997, p.13-21. This article contains material which informed but is not reported in The Nationbuilders, although there is material in the book which I did not have when I wrote this. This essay was in preparation for an entry in The Dictionary of New Zealand Biography.

Keywords Political Economy & History

Bernard Carl Ashwin (1896-1975), founder on the modern Treasury, was one of New Zealand’s great civil servants, and perhaps the most influential from the 1930s to June 1955, when he retired from Secretary of the Treasury.[1] Keith Sinclair’s biography of Nash has only a handful of brief references, but one says revealingly, `Fraser ruled in very close consultation with the Federation of Labour. The other powers in the land were Walter Nash and Bernard Ashwin.’[2] The assessment is echoed by John Martin `[h]e was clearly one of a small group – Nash, Fraser, and Walsh being the others – who were at the centre of the decision making process.’[3] In Ashwin’s case that `central role’ continued into the early years of the National government.