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NEW ZEALAND CENTRE FOR GLOBALISATION STUDIES

Keywords: Globalisation & Trade; Growth & Innovation;

PUBLIC INTELLECTUALS (INDEX)

Keywords: History of Ideas, Methodology, Philosophy;

STUDENT LOANS AND STUDENT FEES

Presentation for Annual Conference of Federation of University Women, Christchurch, 27 September 2003.

Keywords: Education;

I do not actually object to student loans. It is perfectly sensible way for a student short of cash to borrow on the security of future earnings. I will have something, in the short time available to me, to say about the inefficiency of the current student loan system, but what I am really concerned about today is the way we force students into debt through our university fees and allowances system.

THE NEW INTELLECTUALS?

Panel Presentation for Public Intellectuals Seminar, Friday 26 September. An earlier panel was Public Policy and Thinktanks

To continue the approach of focussing on the public intellectual discourse, in which case the issue of the New Intellectuals is under what conditions might they occur. At issue, then, is whether those conditions have changed sufficiently to be able to say �new�. Here I look at, as befits my profession, resources and institutions.

PUBLIC POLICY AND THINKTANKS

Panel Presentation for Public Intellectuals Seminar, Friday 26 September. A later panel was The New Intellectuals?

To begin, as is appropriate, with a dissent from the conventional wisdom. The notion of �Public Intellectuals� seems to me to be unhelpful, because it focusses on individuals, and is likely to generate jealous spats of just who is or who is not one. It is the public intellectual discourse which we should focus on, the process by which intellectual activity is applied to questions of public policy in its widest sense.

PUNISHING EXPORTS: How our monetary policy inhibits growth.

Listener: 20 September, 2003.

Keywords: Growth & Innovation; Macroeconomics & Money;

Remember the teacher who put the whole class into detention because of the misbehaviour of some rowdies at the back? Exporters have a similarly bitter view of the Reserve Bank (RBNZ). It has maintained a high base interest rate (coming down slowly) because the domestic rowdies have been putting inflationary pressure on the economy. Relatively high interest rates affect the rowdy businesses, but also the rest of the economy, especially exporters, because high interest rates tend to push up the exchange rate and reduce the profitability of exporting.

THE ANALYSIS OF COSTS AND BENEFITS OF GAMBLING

�It is a capital mistake to theorise before one has data� Sherlock Holmes.

Keywords: Health;

Introduction

There as been various calls for a �cost benefit analysis� of gambling in New Zealand. The expression �cost-benefit analysis� (CBA) has a rigorous meaning in economics, and while there is no need for economics to insist that their meaning of the terms should be universally applied, it is helpful to recognise that the phrase is being used as a short hand for �an analysis of the costs and benefits�. Thus the CBA ends up with a single number � a total quantum of which summarises all the costs and benefits in an economy. But even were that quantum zero � so the costs and benefits netted out � there would still be considerable interest in the individual costs and benefits and their incidence. So until there is a consensus to the contrary, I propose to interpret the expression �cost benefit analysis� to be synonymous with �the analysis of costs and benefits� rather than economist�s technical term which in this text I shall refer to as �CBA�. I use the expression �cost benefit analysis� to denote both.

SINGLE-SEX VS CO-ED: Is One Better than the Other?

Keywords: Education: Statistics;

Ruth Laugesen of the Sunday Star Times asked me to look at differences between academic performance between single-sex and co-ed schools. Her summary report is �Same-sex Schools’ Success� (September 14) is in an appendix below, the longer report is �In a Class of Their Own� This paper summarises my findings.

THE IMPACT OF INTERNATIONAL PRICE DISCREPANCIES ON PPP-ADJUSTED GDP

This is the first of a series of papers concerned with PPP measures. The papers are in varying presentational styles and also reflects may growing understanding of the issues involved, and my improving presentation of them.See Measuring PPP-adjusted GDP Index for the other papers. This paper, written in September 2003, is a simple mathematical exposition.

Keywords: Statistics;

This paper is presents a simple proposition:

Where the international prices of exported goods are less than the purchasing power parity prices of the same consumption goods the purchasing power parity adjusted GDP measured on the production side will be less than the purchasing power parity adjusted GDP measured on the expenditure side for those countries which are net exporters of the good.

WACCY ECONOMICS: Are there clear rules governing public investment?

Listener: 6 September. 2003.

Keywords: Business & Finance;

Not learning from the past often results in repeating its mistakes. So a short history of “project evaluation” is called for. In the 1950s, overseas economists proposed Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA) as a systematic way of appraising government investment. By the late 1960s, it was being applied in New Zealand, but various government departments applied it differently.

Brian Easton