One of the most fortunate things about being a New Zealander is that we are close to Australia and we have the right to live and work there. This is not just because Australia does many things very well, but simply because Australia is such a wonderful place. Looking back, I can’t believe I only […]
By international standards, New Zealand is a small town economy. True, Auckland now has more than 1.5 million people, but by global metrics this is not very large. In 2010 there were 449 cities with more than 1 million residents, and Auckland was ranked 307 in terms of population. Small beans indeed – even if […]
The Zero-Carbon Act means New Zealand is to accelerate the transition to an economy that uses fewer carbon-fossil based energy sources. Given what we know about the problems of global warming, a future in which most energy is renewable is to be welcomed. (As a life-long bicycle commuter, I also hope this future involves fewer […]
In a sense OK Boomer has a history as long as the lives of Baby Boomers themselves – at least if we relate such things to the overlapping generations models in economics.
In an earlier post I noted that a partial solution to the climate crisis is large scale investments in capital-intensive green energy projects, particularly in developing countries. This provides an opportunity for middle-aged savers in high income countries, so long as their savings are productively invested. This is where New Zealand has an issue.
The world faces three particularly awkward economic issues over the next fifty years: how global living standards can be maintained with lower greenhouse gas emissions; how poor people in countries that still have high population growth rates can be brought out of poverty; and how the impact of population ageing in higher income nations can […]