The Whistling-in-the-Dark Budget
Reality obviously has not caught up with this Government yet. New Zealand is facing an economic crisis, but the Government is having none of it. [...]
Fiscal policy
International confidence matters
To keep international investors’ trust, we must remain squeaky clean in our fundamental economic institutions. If we are not, New Zealand will come out of the Covid-19 crisis as a broken economy and a failed state. [...]
Debt-financed infrastructure spending won’t solve Germany’s problems
It must indeed be tempting to binge on infrastructure spending as Berlin can now borrow for 30 years at a negative interest rate of 0.11 percent. But should the Germans do so? [...]
Will the Living Standards Framework replace budgetary analysis?
The Treasury should clarify the relationship between its Living Standards Framework and mainstream cost benefit analysis. [...]
When a hole is not a hole
The only hole we have in fiscal plans is independent scrutiny of Government’s and the parties’ numbers. [...]
Sharing New Zealand’s progress
As New Zealand is looking ahead to a series of budget surpluses, it becomes imperative for the government to have an answer to those reflexes. And it has to be an attractive answer to stop the fiscal dogs from salivating. [...]
Thankfully, a boring budget
Bill English has delivered a solid, unspectacular and sober budget. And there is nothing wrong with that. Unless you are a gallery journalist. [...]
NZ gets no-nonsense, no-fuss budget with a surplus on top
If there is one art Prime Minister John Key’s New Zealand government has mastered, it is expectation management. So for its eighth budget, delivered yesterday, expectations were low. Hence nobody was disappointed when Minister of Finance Bill English delivered it. [...]
The Greens’ watchdog
Albert Einstein said, “for an idea that does not first seem insane, there is no hope.” If Einstein is right, there is hope for the Greens’ proposal to establish a new office to cost political parties’ new policies. [...]
Budget 2015: Not ambitious enough
Budget 2015 shows there is work to do to make New Zealand more productive. Unfortunately, it did not give us any suggestions on how the government would want to achieve this. [...]