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The New Zealand experience with requiring state-owned enterprises (SOEs) to be run as successful businesses demonstrates that high quality reforms can generate enormous gains in productivity, product quality and profitability - along with lower (real) prices for consumers. Nevertheless, the gains were always likely to be limited by the difficulties involved in: * applying full commercial disciplines when state industries do not have to succeed to survive; * providing risk capital to SOEs when fiscal constraints and/or political considerations may conflict with commercial goals; * making the competitive environment genuinely neutral, when continuing government ownership brings with it the possibility of future state bail-outs; and * maintaining the early gains in the face of the political pressures to weaken the commercial disciplines which were put in place when the SOEs were first formed. Read more

This report examines New Zealand’s fiscal policy in the context of wider policies aimed at restructuring the economy in order to raise income and employment levels, and outlines the desirable directions of fiscal policy over the medium term. Read more

The reforms proposed in the Industry Training Bill are likely to produce training more closely related to the needs of the industry and more dynamic in its response to changing needs. Nevertheless, the gains from these reforms will fall short of what might be achieved because of a number of conditions in the Bill for recognising and funding Industry Training Organisations. Read more

The NZBR is interested in encouraging the adoption of policies which maximise the efficiency of the electricity industry. It has participated in previous reviews of the industry, presenting a major submission on pricing issues to the government in 1985, and it has supported the formation of the Electricity Corporation as a state-owned enterprise and the deregulation of the generation market. Read more

The NZBR's interest in the Financial Reporting Bill (the Bill) stems from its desire to promote policies which will enhance the efficiency of New Zealand's equity and debt markets. These markets play a key role in allocating resources among alternative uses and they facilitate competition for the control of large publicly-held companies. Read more

The Bill is designed to provide a legal framework for the operation of the proposed Takeover Panel, including the formation of a takeover 'code'. In addition, the Bill offers some generalised guidelines to the Panel in its tasks and provides for enforcement of compliance with any code devised by the Panel and approved by the Minister of Justice. Read more

The NZBR has been a longstanding advocate of fundamental reform of the Accident Compensation Scheme. It is a major policy programme with a significant impact on New Zealand's international competitiveness, the capacity of the economy to grow and create jobs, and individual well-being. Read more

The general analysis on which our comments are based is an NZBR study, Retirement Income Provision, which sought to address the retirement income issue in a comprehensive way. The central finding of this study was that the future welfare of retired New Zealanders is fundamentally dependent on an increased output of goods and services from the economy. Read more

Fighting inflation is and should be a primary goal of the Reserve Bank. Inflation decreases the incentive to save, misallocates resources, interacts with the tax system in pernicious ways, distorts the information conveyed by market prices, increases uncertainty, and redistributes income arbitrarily. Read more

This collection of speeches and articles is the third in a series produced by the New Zealand Business Roundtable. The material in this volume is concerned with New Zealand's economic future. Read more