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BUBBLE AND POP

Listener: 28 November, 1987
Keywords: Business & Finance; Macroeconomics & Money;
Don’t ask why the share market crashed at the end of October. Rather ask why it rose in the preceding months. It is easy enough to describe sharemarket booms and busts by the phrase ‘mob psychology’, but this is not an explanation. What if each individual [...]

28th November 1987 | Comments Closed

CHRISTENING A BOOK

Listener 3 October, 1987
 
Keywords: Distributional Economics; Social Policy;
 
I t was meant to be a book launching, but it was really a christening. Instead of us all standing around in a bookshop, gallery or library –  wine glass in hand, gossiping and complaining about the latest book awards – we commenced with an hour-long service in [...]

3rd October 1987 | Comments Closed

PREDICTING A RECESSION

Listener: 13 June, 1987
Keywords:  Macroeconomics & Money;
The good news is that the economy is on track, performing largely as might have been expected given the liberalisation policies applied to it. But what do we mean by ‘on track’? In early 1985 I was visited by an International Monetary Fund mission on its annual review of [...]

13th June 1987 | Comments Closed

VALUING A GOOD TIME, DEARIE

Listener 30 May 1987.

Keywords: Regulation & Taxation;

I imagine that somewhere in the megaliths near the Beehive there is a memorandum advocating the decriminalisation of prostitution. It probably starts with the “general principle” that there should be no artificial barriers to the entry or exit of firms to the industry in New Zealand.

30th May 1987 | Comments Closed

ECONOMIC LIBERALISATION: WHERE DO PEOPLE FIT IN?

Responding to the Revolution: Careers, culture and Casualties ed. A. von Tunzelmann & J. Johnston, (NZIPA, 1987), being the proceedings of the NZIPA 1987 conference. (pp.85-93)

Keywords: History of Ideas, Methodology & Philosophy; Social Policy;

Keynes remarked that practical men (he meant politicians, bureaucrats and businessmen) are but the slaves of some defunct economist, a sentiment that will have been all too apparent over the last few years. Today I want to focus upon some of these defunct economists, to show how economic analysis which is too narrowly directed results in policies for economic change which generate social costs far in excess of any ‘economic’ benefits.

12th May 1987 | Comments Closed

IT WASN’T ME, SIR

Listener: 24 January, 1987
Keywords: Political Economy & History;
Easton, come out in front of the class!
Yes, sir.
What have you done to the school playground?
What have I done, sir?
Yes, the playground is a total mess. Look at it! There are closed factories all around, bankrupt farms, and thousands of unemployed workers. It looks as though it’s been [...]

24th January 1987 | Comments Closed