The 93,000 kilometre roading network is one of the New Zealand’s most expensive assets. In the absence of any official estimate, informed observers put its depreciated replacement cost at around $60 billion. Read more
The authors analyse three reform proposals to the 1992 system of government: the replacement of the first-past-the-post electoral system with proportional representation, the reintroduction of a second chamber of parliament and increased use of referenda. The study assesses whether such reforms would improve the workings of government. Read more
The 1990s are destined to be a decade of profound and potentially beneficial change in the New Zealand economy. The process of structural reform is well advanced and is laying the foundations for a significant and sustained reversal of our inferior economic performance. Read more
The New Zealand experience with requiring state-owned enterprises (SOEs) to be run as successful businesses demonstrates that high quality reforms can generate enormous gains in productivity, product quality and profitability - along with lower (real) prices for consumers. Nevertheless, the gains were always likely to be limited by the difficulties involved in: * applying full commercial disciplines when state industries do not have to succeed to survive; * providing risk capital to SOEs when fiscal constraints and/or political considerations may conflict with commercial goals; * making the competitive environment genuinely neutral, when continuing government ownership brings with it the possibility of future state bail-outs; and * maintaining the early gains in the face of the political pressures to weaken the commercial disciplines which were put in place when the SOEs were first formed. Read more
This report examines New Zealand’s fiscal policy in the context of wider policies aimed at restructuring the economy in order to raise income and employment levels, and outlines the desirable directions of fiscal policy over the medium term. Read more
Fighting inflation is and should be a primary goal of the Reserve Bank. Inflation decreases the incentive to save, misallocates resources, interacts with the tax system in pernicious ways, distorts the information conveyed by market prices, increases uncertainty, and redistributes income arbitrarily. Read more
Several countries around the world, including the United Kingdom and now New Zealand, are trying to introduce elements of competition into their publicly-financed health care systems. These initiatives are constrained by the fear that moving from a predominantly public monopoly towards competitive private insurance will necessarily unleash all the evils of the United States health care system - relentless cost inflation, vast disparities in access to care and deprivation of the poor. Read more
This collection of speeches and articles is the third in a series produced by the New Zealand Business Roundtable. The material in this volume is concerned with New Zealand's economic future. Read more
The New Zealand Business Roundtable has published a number of studies on various aspects of New Zealand's welfare state aimed at promoting reforms which would: improve the quality, responsiveness and cost-effectiveness of social services. The real value of every dollar spent on social services, whether by individual New Zealanders directly or by the government on their behalf, could be increased by allowing greater freedom of choice in consumption and increased competition in delivery; reduce the pressure of the welfare state on the government's budget. Read more
This report reviews and evaluates the options for changing the financing and delivery of health care in New Zealand. Our analysis is motivated by widespread dissatisfaction with the level and quality of services produced by the current system, and particularly by the public hospitals. Read more
This report looks into more efficient and equitable means of reducing the potential for discrimination in employment relations. Read more