Monopsonies – dominant purchasers – need to be restrained as much as monopolies – dominant sellers. That is what pay equity ...

While many of the world’s Christian religions seem preoccupied with personal issues that Jesus, their founder, barely touched upon, they must engage with economic issues too. Robert Prevost, chose the ...

Should we pursue a ‘Golden Rule’ where any public borrowing for consumption is temporary? This columnist is a fiscal conservative who is cautious about government borrowing for public consumption. I ...

A major American study suggests they are not? This column is about the white working class. In the US 2024 elections they mainly voted for Donald Trump. Had they voted with the white middle class, ...

The budget runup is far from easy. Budget 2025 day is Thursday 22 May. About a month earlier in a normal year, the macroeconomic forecasts would be completed (the fiscal ones would still be tidying up ...

Four eighty-year-old books which are still vitally relevant today. Between 1942 and 1945, four refugees from Vienna each published a ground-breaking – seminal – book.* They left their country after ...

A modest attempt to analyse Donald Trump’s tariff policies. Alfred Marshall, whose text book was still in use 40 years after he died wrote ‘every short statement about economics is misleading with the ...

While there have been decades of complaints – from all sides – about the workings of the Resource Management Act (RMA), replacing is proving difficult. The Coalition Government is making another ...

It is said that economists know the price of everything and the value of nothing. That may be an exaggeration but an even better response is to point out economists do know the difference. They did ...

While doing some unrelated work, I came across some international data on the healthcare sector which seemed to contradict my – and the conventional wisdom’s – view of the healthcare sector. Broadly, ...

Peter Frankopan’s The Earth Transformed: An Untold History is a compelling account of the interaction between humans and the environment. . The Silk Roads: A New History of the World by Oxford ...