Erwin Schrödinger never actually put cats into boxes that might or might not kill them, depending on a radioactive isotope’s random decay. It was only a thought experiment designed to show that the unseen cat could simultaneously be considered both dead and alive, until the box was opened. Read more

After Fraser High School principal Virginia Crawford read her students the riot act about truancy, linking it to a host of social ills from criminal activity to being a victim of crime, and from illiteracy to unemployment, her offended students staged a walkout. It is easy to see why the students were offended. Read more

Today we offer thanks and praise to those undertaking the most thankless of bureaucratic tasks, forever rolling good policy advice uphill only to watch it roll back down again, seemingly ignored. The country would be far worse in the absence of their labours. Read more

Fair risks? Well, the government won’t be able to say it wasn’t warned about the risks in its fair pay agreements process. Read more

Treasury’s latest stakeholder survey shows that I’m far from the only one worried about declining economic capabilities at the Government’s lead economics advisor. Keeping all the stakeholders happy is an impossible task for any organisation. Read more

Nutrient load is too high in too many New Zealand lakes and rivers. Cleaning up the mess featured prominently in last year’s election. Read more

Every two years, Treasury surveys stakeholders about Treasury’s performance. The 2015 survey was up on Treasury’s website about two months after it was completed. Read more

Zombies are hard to kill. Since the classical zombie only really occurs in fiction, accounts vary. Read more

It was the year 2019 and Kiwis had had enough. It was time for legislation to finally protect the interests of those of us stuck in the car leasing market. Read more

People can argue the toss about whether the government should be more or less active in redistributing income but it’s good to have an accurate picture of how much the government already does to reduce inequalities in market income. It’s especially important when the government’s reviewing the tax system. Read more

The Productivity Commission’s report on state sector productivity makes for dismal reading. We all could be enjoying either more of the benefits that government programmes can provide, or lower taxes, or a combination of the two if the state sector had a greater focus on productivity. Read more

Housing Minister Phil Twyford’s address to Infrastructure New Zealand’s Building Nations Symposium last week made it very clear that the current governing coalition is very serious about fixing Auckland’s housing affordability crisis. But the conference also made a few other things clear. Read more

I noted a few problems in Treasury’s staffing in my column a fortnight ago. Among staff whose qualifications are known working as analysts, senior analysts, principal advisors and senior managers, economists are in the minority. Read more