soda

Diary of a public health expert

Week 1- After years of campaigning, I knew it was only a matter of time before our government ramped up its efforts tackling child obesity. Like my counterparts in Chile, I will be offering the government my technical expertise to crack down on junk food advertising to children. Read more

Insights Newsletter
16 February, 2018
Work week

NZ businesses should be innovative, but aware of complicated labour market

I love Perpetual Guardian's experiment with a four-day work-week, but that does not mean I think it will work. The great thing about flexible labour markets is that it does not matter whether I think it will work, whether you think it will work, or whether the labour regulators at the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE) think it will work. Read more

Dr Eric Crampton
Stuff
12 February, 2018
Education

A trick for principals

New Zealand school principals should add to their skills repertoire: ‘Magician’. In the week leading to the first day of school, leaders were reaching into their hats of creative tricks to fill vacancies. Read more

Insights Newsletter
9 February, 2018
New Zealand flag

A nation divided

This week saw a nation divided. While there were no protests in the streets, snarky comments were rife. Read more

Insights Newsletter
9 February, 2018
Traffic jam

The new and the good

James Shaw’s State of the Planet speech called for a new economic model – sustainability economics – to meet environmental and equity challenges ahead. While his call comes from the left, it reminded me of earlier criticisms of mainstream economics from the right. Read more

Dr Eric Crampton
The National Business Review
9 February, 2018

Media release: Sugar taxes unlikely to improve health

Wellington (2 February 2018): A review of sugar taxes commissioned from NZIER by the Ministry of Health, released this week under the Official Information Act, finds that sugar taxes are unlikely to improve health outcomes. The report finds that: “No study based on actual experience with sugar taxes has identified an impact on health outcomes.” “Studies using sound methods report reductions in [sugar] intake that are likely too small to generate health benefits and could easily be cancelled out by substitution of other sources of sugar or calories.” Earlier studies significantly overestimate the effect of sugar taxes on sugar consumption due to “fundamental methodological flaws,” and these estimates have contaminated later modelling trying to assess the health benefits of sugar taxes. Read more

Media release
2 February, 2018
blue piggy on the grass 1

Oxfam & LBJ

Lyndon Johnson once said of his unrelenting critics that if he walked on the Potomac, headlines would criticise him for not being able to swim. I was reminded of this when I read Oxfam New Zealand’s comments surrounding the release of the latest Oxfam report “Reward Work, not Wealth”. Read more

Richard Baker
Insights Newsletter
2 February, 2018

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