Recently a newspaper column by former Metro editor Warwick Roger made me sit up and think. It was a kindly reflection on the late Bruce Jesson, a fellow journalist and non-stop critic of most of New Zealand's economic changes in the past 15 years. Read more
The power of ideas should never be underestimated. Good or bad ideas will usually influence public policy – if not in the short run then at least over the long run. Read more
Being ignorant of New Zealand's local circumstances, I am uncertain what I can offer to another country on topics such as the law and economics of resource management. What I hope to bring is a general theory that applies independently of local concerns. Read more
My task today is to consider reforms for the government's regulation of schooling. By way of introduction, let me refer briefly to a talk I gave during my previous visit to New Zealand, in December 1995, entitled 'The Role of the Government in Education'. Read more
The kind introductory remarks of Mr Judd provide a valuable framework for my topic. And his invocation of Frederic Bastiat offers an instructive, if unintended, way to frame this lecture. Read more
It was only with some trepidation that I accepted your invitation to speak about the Treaty of Waitangi and the rights of indigenous people, a most controversial subject in New Zealand. At one level, the debates here replicate those that are occurring elsewhere in the world. Read more
The topic of discrimination in the law of employment is one of the growth industries of our time. The issue covers the gamut from race, to sex, to disability and to age. Read more
Norman Barry defends the morality of Anglo-American business, a form of which is practised in New Zealand, against critics who argue that market morality has to be imposed from outside. He claims that proposals to impose wider forms of ‘social responsibility’ on firms would be bad for business and, therefore, for society. Read more
The case for stadium and event subsidies is a weak one. The economic arguments in favour of such subsidies do not succeed. Read more
The subject of this paper is a failed venture in international economic cooperation, the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI). I consider the reasons for the failure and its wider implications. Read more
Remember 1994? That was the year that marked a decade of economic reforms in New Zealand. Read more
Over the past two decades, economic policies across the world, and economic systems with them, have changed their character, their complexion. To an extent that few anticipated before the event, a large and growing array of governments have adopted measures, and in some cases whole programmes, with the intention and the effect of making their economies freer, more open and less regulated: both individually and in concert, they have taken the path of economic reform. Read more
Supporters of big government and the welfare state regulary accuse their opponents of lacking 'compassion'. But how much have they thought about what compassion really involves? Read more
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