I love this quote from New Zealand First’s Shane Jones here: https://www.newsroom.co.nz/tourism-nears-summer-of-uncertainty. This “can-do” optimistic attitude breaks down because of the the concept of public and private tourism goods and services. About Goods… and Bads“Goods” are things which people want. “Private” goods are things people want and can be made to…
Institutional Racism
There is so much wrong with the recently published Health and Disability System Review. Before addressing it’s technical issues, check out the depth of character it pigeon-holes the majority of New Zealanders into.The following description of New Zealand’s population groups is cut and pasted straight from the report. Diverse populationsAotearoa…
The Default Position
There’s been a lot written about how much the economy has been negatively affected by the government’s Covid response. Lots of commentators make their careers talking “about the problem” – especially obvious ones.Hey everyone, there’s a fire burning!! Everyone!! FIRE!!!! FIRE BURNING EVERYONE. FIRE!!!But when someone gets a glass or…
My life is full of non-single use, non-disposable bags…
One of the first things 2017’s Labour / Greens / New Zealand First coalition government did was strongly signal its “green credentials”. First cab off the ranks was stopping new offshore drilling oil permits.The second cab off the ranks was, oddly, single use disposable plastic bags….Rejoicing in the collective kumbiya…
Owning Houses Makes You Richer
Statistics New Zealand just released the change in physical and financial assets component of the National Accounts. The national accounts (change in assets) explains movements in assets and liabilities from one balance sheet to the next for each of New Zealand’s institutional sectors. The accounts show the accumulation of physical…
Nursing Pay Demands Are Bad News for Graduates
New Zealand nurses want more money, or purely and simply, they will strike (http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/360103/nurses-want-more-money-or-strike-to-go-ahead). More money is the only thing that will stop a planned nurses strike from going ahead. In an economy with 1.1% annual inflation, and annual national wage inflation at 1.8%, the nurses union has rejected a 9%…
Thinking about Regions: Updated with R Code
Regional Industry Employment The blogs have been slow this month – sorry people. Things have been quite busy in my neck of the woods. One of the things I am looking at at the moment though are three employment related questions based on Statistics New Zealand’s Business Demographics data: What…
Craft Beer Explosion in a Mature Dull Beer Market
Regular readers of New Zealand economic blogs don’t have to go very far to be convinced of the attraction between Economists and beer, as the number of post on Eric Crampton and Seamus Hogan’s blog Offsetting Behaviour website can attest. Besides the obvious, what makes beer so interesting is the extraordinary proliferation of…
Price Elasticity and New Zealand Retail Sales
Statistics New Zealand, with their recent Retail Statistics released a bit of a bombshell: not only was an decline in retail trade unexpected, but things which (used to) NEVER fall – like supermarket and grocery store sales – declined. The thing about supermarket and groceries is that, since everyone needs to…