Our capital investment levels have been high – why has the performance been poor?  That is a tough question, its easy to say we’ve overinvested in housing and in sectors that perform poorly – but if that is the case the question has to be what has caused this, not an appeal for a CGT and arbitrary intervention.

Also, given our small size and distance from market, and given the rising relative price of primary goods (which we are highly exposed to) has our productivity performance been so bad?  Average productivity tends to fall when a countries terms of trade rises – as exporters ramp up production, using more marginal resources.  And yet, export productivity in NZ has kept rising, even as it has fallen in Australia and Canada.

I find that little fact fascinating, and have planned to write about it for the past six months – but to no avail 😉