You searched Opinion and Media for "" and got 1017 results
Last month Rebecca Macfie wrote an article in the Listener entitled “Our slack bosses”. In it she argued that “one of New Zealand’s dirtiest little secrets is that our businesses are not very well managed” and that “the poor quality of New Zealand managers is holding the country back”. Read more
The savings debate has not always been well-informed, and it’s good that the government has put together a well qualified group to advise it. The last official inquiry was part of the 2001 McLeod Tax Review. Read more
John Maynard Keynes once wrote: “There is no harm in being sometimes wrong – especially if one is promptly found out.” Unfortunately for the world, the problems with Keynes’ ideas were not discovered promptly, and the lessons were too soon forgotten as Keynesian thinking enjoyed a revival with the recent global financial crisis and subsequent recession. At the time of the Great Depression in the 1930s, Keynes advocated fiscal stimulus – higher government spending or tax reductions – to boost total spending in the economy and put the unemployed back into jobs. Read more
In recent years Statistics NZ has done an excellent job of shedding light on the productivity performance of the economy. It made a further contribution with a release last month of productivity statistics at the industry level for the years 1978-2008. Read more
A few weeks ago I decided to look out for examples of economic fallacies that routinely appear in our media. It didn’t take long to make a list. Read more
The annual budget is the main statement of the government’s overall economic and social programme. So in the first instance it needs to be evaluated in terms of the government’s own goals. Read more
Preparations for the 2010 budget will be underway in government circles. The 2010 Budget Policy Statement, which sets out the broad parameters, is due in December. Read more