Economics
About Economics
From the price of milk to how easy it is to find a job, the way each of us live and many of the choices we get to make depend on how we answer the economic questions facing New Zealand. We approach these questions knowing that economics isn’t just financial, it’s about the wellbeing of every person.
Most Recent Activity
Alex Penk on The Project – Newshub
By Alex Penk
In response to the Government’s minimum wage rise, The Project featured an interview with Alex Penk as part of a…
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Back to the Trade Wars?
By Julian Wood
It seems the Trade Wars are back on. Battle-lines are being draw up like the musket wars of old, with…
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“No.8 wire” ethic is not enough
By Julian Wood
While New Zealanders are proud of the “number 8 wire” ethos that represents our ingenuity and resourcefulness, our actual productivity…
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Getting fit to compete in the global game
By Julian Wood
While political and economic “change” is on everyone’s lips, we need to be clear about our current situation, and what…
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Read our column on The Spinoff and RNZ
By Alex Penk
This week, Alex Penk and Julian Wood’s column Triumph or disaster? A guide to the minimum wage increase featured on The…
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$1B regional development fund needs coherent vision
By Alex Penk
Maxim Institute welcomes investment in New Zealand’s regions, but CEO Alex Penk cautions that we urgently need more detail on…
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Getting real about the cost of water
By Julian Wood
I spent 10 years in China working on a beef cattle farm, and a fair amount of that time was…
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Taxes, trust, and transparency
By Kieran Madden
“When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?” This, apparently, was economist John Maynard Keynes’…
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Funding roads in the electric future
By Julian Wood
In a recent blog, I made the case for regional petrol taxes, which would allow district and town authorities to…
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Paying at the pump to revive our crumbling infrastructure
By Julian Wood
We hear a lot about Auckland’s infrastructure woes, but across the country there are regions desperately trying to fund their…
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Youth UBI fails to focus on real need
By Danielle van Dalen
Only a few years ago I would have been eligible for the $200 a week Gareth Morgan’s party just announced…
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Big questions for local councils
By Alex Penk
Do you expect your council to light your streets and fix the potholes? Do you think it should provide clean…
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Investing in people, regardless of return
By Julian Wood
Like the proverbial frog in the slowly heating pot, many of us are blissfully unaware of the change currently going…
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The Budget partnership between the people and our Government
By Julian Wood
Each year the Budget charts a broad course for the years ahead. It outlines how much money the Government has,…
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Tax the robots?
By Julian Wood
We’re now quite used to dire predictions concerning the future of work, job stability, and automation. As far back as…
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Our insecure future of work
By Kieran Madden
Many pinned Trump’s election and the Brexit vote as being fueled by people’s fear of losing their way of life….
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New Zealand, let’s stop being a cheap date
By Julian Wood
Travellers are enamoured with us. Last year, 3.5 million visitors arrived in New Zealand to check us out. This is…
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Newspaper coverage of regional development paper
Newspapers around New Zealand published articles in response to our Growing Beyond Growth report on regional development Read articles from: …
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NZ Herald Focus interview on regional development paper
Bernadine Oliver-Kerby interviewed Alex Penk about our regional development paper for NZ Herald’s online video series. Watch the interview here
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Alex Penk on RNZ National – Regional Development
The day we released our paper Growing Beyond Growth – rethinking the goals of regional development in New Zealand, CEO Alex…
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