Insights

‘Insights’ is the weekly newsletter of The New Zealand Initiative. Every Friday it provides comment pieces on domestic and global policy issues and the state of the world as such. It is a newsletter serious enough for a think tank – and lighthearted enough for an enjoyable Friday afternoon read. Please subscribe to ‘Insights’ by visiting the website of The New Zealand Initiative: www.nzinitiative.org.nz

Insights

TPP welcome, but no panacea

30/11/2012
An extended TPP may have a positive effect on FDI – and New Zealand certainly needs to improve its FDI performance. But we should not expect the TPP to be a game-changer. Instead, we need to focus more on welcoming international investors, whether from TPP member countries or not.

[…]

Insights

America’s real choice

09/11/2012
What the United States can least afford is four more years of election campaign-style politics. Both camps must work together to avert fiscal disaster. But are Democrats and Republicans willing to cooperate for positive change?

[…]

Insights

Affordable housing is more than a motherhood statement

02/11/2012
In considering housing and planning reforms, we need to understand why New Zealand’s housing market is failing to adjust to increases in demand. This is the core question. Once we have found the answer, we will be able to design policies that will restore housing affordability.

[…]

Insights

End the Dotcom sideshow

19/10/2012
No doubt Herr Dotcom has real entertainment value, and his case confounds the view that there’s nothing comical about us Germans. But New Zealand would be better off dedicating its attention to real policy issues and sending Dotcom back into cyberspace.

[…]

Insights

Don’t join the currency wars

28/09/2012
A curious coalition of exporters, newspaper commentators, Labour, the Green Party, and New Zealand First wants the RBNZ to relinquish its traditional focus on inflation. Instead, they want the central bank to intervene and curb the rising exchange rate of the kiwi dollar.

[…]

Insights

Migration destination New Zealand

14/09/2012
No doubt New Zealand is an attractive country – even those Europeans who knew little else about New Zealand knew that. But are we doing enough to attract the best migrants to our country? Or are we happy for them to migrate to Canada, the United States, Asia or Australia instead?

[…]

Insights

Something rotten in the state of Denmark

07/09/2012
Countries such as New Zealand should study the European experience closely. You cannot become prosperous by redistributing wealth. Any successful society needs a strong private sector. And you also need it to pay for the services delivered by the state.

[…]

Insights

An economist’s physics envy

31/08/2012
If economics wants to be as successful as the natural sciences, it should perhaps rethink using their language and methods. Seeing economics as a discipline that has more to do with history, politics and psychology than with mathematics may be the first step.

[…]