Reports & Media

I don't think there has ever been a better time to pull out Homer Simpson's term "crisitunity". As everyone knows, the Chinese character for crisis combines danger with opportunity - hence crisitunity. Read more

Now that the Greek banks have re-opened, the third bailout package is on the way and something vaguely resembling normalcy is returning to Greece, we can finally deal with other things again: the euro crisis, for example. You may object that what kept us so excited, frightened and busy over the past few months was the euro crisis. Read more

This week, Local Government New Zealand launched a funding reform pitch at central government, broadly making a case that if you want the national economy to grow, you need to fund the enablers of that growth better. This is certainly not the first such pitch that the local government sector has made to officials in Wellington on the matter. Read more

If one wanted to summarise all of economics in just one word, what would it be? For obvious reasons it cannot be “supply and demand” (because that is three words). Read more

From Sunday, my colleague Jason Krupp and I will be attending the annual Local Government New Zealand conference. It is LGNZ’s flagship event of the year, bringing together 600 delegates from New Zealand's councils along with key players from the private sector, business, government and non-government agencies. Read more

This week we released a research report, A Matter of Balance: Regulating Safety. It looked into the costs and benefits of Ministry for Business, Innovation and Employment's (MBIE) campaign to reduce workplace injuries from falls from heights of less than 3 metres in residential construction. Read more

Australia National University’s Dr George Barker suggested this week that New Zealand could do well by strengthening its copyright legislation. He warned against the fair dealing exceptions that have crept into the law and asked, “Why not have copyright law like property law – i.e. Read more