New Zealand’s isolated geography should not fool us. In our interconnected world, no country is an island – at least metaphorically.
What happens in other places affects New Zealand: culturally, politically and economically.
A greater awareness of global affairs helps us make better choices for the future of our country. By looking overseas we can assess whether particular policies have proven beneficial or detrimental. That knowledge can be extremely helpful when determining whether policies should be introduced in New Zealand. It enables us to learn from the successes and failures of others. And it allows us to engage with our international peers on areas of mutual and strategic interest.
The New Zealand Initiative research follows international affairs, assesses their significance for New Zealand, and comments on them to help define the nation’s place in the global space.
Understanding how so-called Fair Pay Agreements and social unemployment insurance work overseas has provided us with hard evidence to oppose these schemes in New Zealand. We regularly comment on global affairs, and occasionally publish essays on New Zealand and the world, including The Outside of the Asylum (2017) and Why Europe Failed (2015)
Our regular International Outlook podcast series keeps our listeners up-to-date on international affairs and their significance for New Zealand.
Taxpayers commonly work hard to earn the money that governments take in taxes. Knowing the effort sacrificed they naturally want governments to spend that money wisely and well. Read more
Last month, the Initiative published an essay listing six mistakes Graeme Wheeler and I argue the world’s major central banks widely made in responding to COVID. The New Zealand media interpreted this as an attack on the RBNZ. Read more
A research note released today by The New Zealand Initiative mainly attributes the outbreak of inflation in many economies to central bank mistakes. Co-authored by Graeme Wheeler, former Governor of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, and Bryce Wilkinson, Senior Research Fellow at The New Zealand Initiative, the paper argues that central banks overall: were too confident about their monetary policy framework; were too confident about their models; were too confident they could control output and employment; lost their focus on price stability and took on too many mandates; faced conflicts in some cases with conflicting ‘dual mandate’ objectives; and were distracted by extraneous political objectives, such as climate change. Read more
Read our submission, written by Dr Bryce Wilkinson to the Reserve Bank of New Zealand. This submission responds to the Bank’s 1 June 2022 consultation paper, Supporting New Zealand’s economic stability. Read more
In making this submission, we have drawn on the research and recommendations in our report, Work in Progress: Why Fair Pay Agreements would be bad for labour (July 2019) (our Report). A copy of our Report is appended to this submission. Read more
If you want to know the effects of small changes to tax rates or tax thresholds on government revenue, Treasury provides a handy calculator. But the calculator breaks if you ask it to tell you the effects of inflation on tax revenues since April 2021, when the new 39% tax rate came in. Read more
The Platform's Sean Plunket interviewed Eric Crampton on New Zealand's tax system. He comments on the latest in a long line of dodgy Oxfam reports on inequality. Read more
Fair Pay Agreements have been passed into law amidst a fiery debate in parliament. Legislation for the agreements passed its final reading in Parliament last night - making it easier for workers to band together and negotiate better conditions and pay. Read more
No one can doubt the importance of military credibility in deterring hostile aggressors. Since Russia invaded Ukraine, even a pacifist post-World War II Germany and the previously neutral Nordic countries have learned that lesson. Read more
If years of arguing about supermarkets and supermarket policy have taught us anything, it’s that allowing another supermarket chain to enter the New Zealand market is in the national interest. So why won’t the government tell the Overseas Investment Office? Read more