National announced yesterday that it is going to keep interest free student loans. As someone with a student loan I love the scheme and the free money it gives me. When I put my economist hat I think that it is terrible policy since it provides terrible incentives to for students to borrow. I personally […]
David Farrar links to a Herald article on a report that came out of Waikato University’s management school saying that Kiwisaver is going to increase income inequality. Their policy analysis that rich people will restructure their activities to get tax benefits in a way that poor people cannot seams relatively sensible. I don’t claim to […]
The Herald has reported on the results of a recent survey which show that New Zealand is now the least affordable place to buy a house in the world. The study reaches this conclusion by examining average wages and house prices. Given the well documented gap between wages in New Zealand and overseas, the housing […]
I found this point particularly interesting “it is not possible to conclude that the relevant markets would be more competitive if the Warehouse Extra concept is pursued by the acquirer than if the Warehouse is not acquired” I have always been of the opinion that the Extra concept would be much more effective in the […]
I have always been skeptical of open source software, if Microsoft and all of their highly paid programmers can’t get it right, how can a bunch of guys who work on projects for free in their spare time do any better? As a recent convert to Linux I now realize how wrong I was. In […]
While I am all for supporting the domestic economy, I think that a strict interpretation of the requirements for a good to be labelled “Made in New Zealand” actually harms our exporters. People get upset when they find out that something that is “Made in New Zealand” is manufactured using inputs purchased from another country. […]