Paul Krugman described behavioural economics as the most important innovation in the economics discipline for half a century.

Understanding its history helps understanding where it is going. The ideas which underpin Kiwisaver entered into the New Zealand political dialogue in the late 1960s when the Labour Party, then in ...

Apply the golden fiscal rule and invest prudently. A lender is greatly disadvantaged compared to a borrower. The borrower gets the cash immediately. In exchange, the lender gets a promise that the ...

The Minister of Health is one of the toughest jobs in Cabinet. In comparison, being Prime Minister or Minister of Finance is easy. Recovering from an emergency operation, unable to move with all the ...

The proposal to reduce the number of public servants is not well worked out. That meant the government’s aim to get its books in surplus by 2030 was compromised; had it done nothing, the new date may ...

The Treasury economic forecasts for May budgets are usually settled in April to feed into the fiscal forecasts and, critically, the borrowing program. They can be changed in the interim six weeks if ...

We are facing difficult challenges from the likely rise in import prices. Many readers may find this week’s column difficult compared to the discussions they are familiar with. That is because it ...

We may regret we have not put enough effort into building resilience. I was wrong when I argued that the Muldoon Government should have hiked petrol tax to ration petrol when it ran short following ...

The turmoil in the world economy from Trump’s attack on Iran will delay New Zealand’s economic recovery. Back in 1993 I was perhaps the first to announce that the economy seemed to be in recovery. The ...

Industrial policy is once more on the agenda of many governments. There is a long history of Industrial Policies (IP) aimed at promoting a particular sector of an economy. When Henry VIII abandoned ...

It is more than a four-letter word exercise. In 1986, the government commissioned a review of science policy chaired by ex-Governor General David Beattie. Among the agencies it interviewed was the ...

Do we need bigger multipurpose government mega-departments? Restructuring seems to be the fashionable management practice whenever faced with a challenge. (Eminent health economist Alan Maynard’s ...