Shane Jones is committed to state-led economic development.

The GDP of a war economy typically rises as all underutilised resources are commandeered but because of the diversion of production into warfare activities – much production simply gets blown up – ...

In this column I use the less familiar measure of GDP per capita instead of the GDP measure favoured by the commentariat. I became familiar with it when I began doing international comparisons because ...

A close analysis of the Treasury assessment of the Medium Term in its PREFU 2023 suggests the economy may be entering a new phase. Last week I explained that the forecasts in the just published ...

Winning office is not the same as achieving change. A recent Economist columnist divided politicians and their political advisers into either ‘jock wankers’ or ‘nerd wankers’. It’s a distinction which ...

How to run a successful pressure group. In 2013 a group of idealists, led by Jordan Williams and David Farrar, established the Taxpayers’ Union. To celebrate its first decade as surely New Zealand’s ...

There was no less razzamatazz about the 2024 Budget than about earlier ones. Once again the underlying economic analysis got lost. It deserves more attention. Just to remind you, the Budget Economic ...

The book I am currently working on – tentative title ‘In Open Seas’ – looks at the current and future New Zealand. One chapter describes the policy towards Covid using the trope of warfare. It covers ...

Does the Autumn 2024 British budget point to a change in fiscal strategies? Many countries found their fiscal position was unsustainable, following the 2008 Global Financial Crash. Their public ...

What might the public’s increasing demands for safety and security tell the economist? Criminology and economics are quite different disciplines. Someone from one discipline trespasses on the other ...

Following the Richardson/Shipley 1990 ‘redesign of the welfare state’ – which eliminated the universal Family Benefit and doubled the rate of child poverty – various income supplements for families ...

The ACT party election manifesto will propose to introduce a Regulatory Standards Act to set a higher bar for new regulation, and test regulations against the key principles of the Regulatory ...