‘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… Read More »What confidence can we have in “business confidence”?
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… Read More »The Budget: bleeding stopped, patient’s condition still serious
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… Read More »The coming Budget: between a rock and a hard place
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… Read More »Why the TPPA-11 is still a bad deal
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 »Was National a ‘good economic manager’?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 »Hope, a new Government and making room to fund its programme
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… Read More »How low wages hold back progress
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… Read More »The union pay premium, 2017
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… Read More »Challenges for the incoming Government
A new report on inequalities in wages, salaries and the income of the self-employed finds growing inequalities in the income they earned per hour over… Read More »Shrinking share of income to low and middle-income earners
The heat of the general election campaign is rising so I suppose it is the time that you’d expect more than usual numbers of fake… Read More »Fighting fake facts
The share of income that working people receive from all the income generated by their work – the labour income share – is important for… Read More »Working people’s share of income – a brief New Zealand history