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 – ...

Why we want the Reserve Bank to operate independently. Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters was wrong to criticise Governor of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, Anna Breman, for cosigning a ...

The tensions between different approaches to the economy are surfacing as the election nears. As we head towards next year’s election, the tensions between the coalition partners are becoming ...

We should follow the Golden Rule of Fiscal Management and not borrow for consumption in the medium run. Asymmetry is a crucial, but often ignored, feature of credit transactions. You would normally be ...

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 ...

What are the economic and political implications if the New Zealand economy stagnates for five and more years? Prime Minister Christopher Luxon told Morning Report that ‘We've got the worst recession* ...

Angus Deaton’s ‘Economics in America’ challenges the direction that economics has taken. In 2015 Angus Deaton was the sole awardee of the Bank of Sweden’s Prize in Honour of Alfred Nobel, for his ...

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 ...

We should not assume that all adopted innovations are progressive. Jonathon Haidt’s ‘The Anxious Generation’ illustrates that sometimes they require social measures to enhance well being. The Anxious ...

This column started out to explain how the proposed structural outsourcing of public surgery was partly a consequence of the peculiarities of our fiscal borrowing practices. In summary, the ...

ACT ‘s neoliberals are still trying to sneak in a change to the constitution. When ACT – the Association of Consumers and Taxpayers – was formed, its then party leader, Roger Douglas, with an ...