It is often said that New Zealand has a low-wage economy in comparison to other high-income countries such as those in their club, the OECD. Business NZ recently disputed that. But there is strong evidence that New Zealand does have low wages. First, a comparison of the purchasing power of annual average wages for full-time… Read more »
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‘Business confidence’ is falling and we should be very concerned, we are told. But is ‘business confidence’ really falling and is it anything more than an opinion poll of some chief executives as to what they think of the Government of the day, or their impression (which may not be any more accurate than yours… Read more »
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In memoriam: This is the 200th CTU Economic Bulletin. It was founded by my predecessor, Peter Conway, CTU economist and then CTU Secretary, who wrote the first 101 issues. He died just three years ago, on 9 June 2015. We still miss his wisdom, values, activism, music and friendship. The 2018 Budget was a “stop… Read more »
Read more... The new Government’s first Budget will be announced on 17 May. What pressures is it facing? It will be in a pincer between the spending needed to plug the gaping holes in our public services and infrastructure left by the previous Government, and its own Budget Responsibility Rules. These rules restrict its operational spending to… Read more »
Read more... The Transpacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) has shrunk into the 11 member “Comprehensive and Progressive Transpacific Agreement” (I’ll call it the TPPA-11) with the exit of Trump’s USA. The Government is now selling it to us as sufficiently improved to be worth signing and ratifying. There are some improvements but it is still a bad deal.… Read more »
Read more... It’s a crucial part of the mythology around National Party Governments that they are “good economic managers”, as their new leader, Simon Bridges, is repeating. The business commentariat repeat it endlessly too. How true is this?
Read more... It’s refreshing to start a new year with the hope that the change of Government has brought. Many of its initiatives take additional government spending so one of the Government’s big challenges is to ensure it has the revenue to carry out its programme, and the willingness to spend it.
Read more... Wages are important socially and economically, but wages are low in New Zealand. We are in a low wage rut, dependent on low wage industries like agriculture and tourism. Low wages contribute to New Zealand’s high income inequality which has many negative effects. We have evidence that high inequality can lead to social breakdown as… Read more »
Read more... In August, the Centre for Labour, Employment and Work (CLEW) at Victoria University released their annual analysis of collective employment agreements (CEAs). It shows again that people who are part of a collective get better pay rises: the union pay premium. For the year to June 2017 CLEW finds that on average wages in collectives… Read more »
Read more... We won’t know for a while which parties will make up the new New Zealand Government. Whoever it is will face the same challenges. The most likely shocks to New Zealand’s economy are from the international economy and from a crash in the housing market. There are still many concerns in Europe, the US, even… Read more »
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