If copyright changes are the dead rat we have to eat with our otherwise-tasty Trans-Pacific Partnership meal,* it is worth knowing a bit more about that rat. To do that, we have to go back to first principles on copyright and its purpose. Read more
Our Head of Research, Dr Eric Crampton, speaks to the Radio New Zealand team (from 3'30") about how economists measure productivity, and what insights we can gather from firms reporting increased productivity. Read more
If Donald Trump were seeking election in New Zealand, he’d have no need to promise a fence to keep out migrants. Nature has given us our own moat. Read more
I’m really glad I’m a millennial. If I wasn’t, I’d have a pretty hard time understanding exactly what they’re all about. Read more
Admittedly, Europe’s migration crisis is far more interesting and important, but we have to talk about Greece again. Amid all other crises plaguing Europe at the moment, the financial problems engulfing Athens had temporarily slipped off the front pages. Read more
The flagship policy in Labour’s ‘State of the Nation’ speech was the announcement to roll out three years of free tertiary education should Labour get in power at the next election. It is good politics since it will increase the party’s appeal to young people – and probably also to their parents. Read more
While traffic-bound Aucklanders celebrated the announcement last week that central government was bringing its funding for the City Rail Link (CRL) forward by two years, I could not help but feel that New Zealand has lost the infrastructure plot. Politically, this was a savvy move by Prime Minister John Key. Read more
Interest-free student loans have been very costly. The billions spent over the past decade subsidising student loans is only part of it. Read more
There are many things that are great about our cool little capital: Wellington’s wind, its regular earthquakes, and of course the Sevens. Though we can’t do much about the former two, at least we can destroy the latter. Read more
Is there anything in the world duller than cricket?* Cricket is one of those sports that is so painfully slow, that commentators have nothing to do but talk about the crowd. Or the weather. Read more
Last week, I wrote about the sorry state of Europe and the person most responsible for it: Angela Merkel (A mess of Merkel’s own making, January 28). This week, we will take a closer look at the German Chancellor, her record — and her prospects of staying in power. Read more
Dr Oliver Hartwich on SBS Radio: Is Europe finished? Read more
Since Angela Merkel invited all refugees to Germany, deep divisions have appeared among the European Unions 28 members. Our Executive Director, Dr Oliver Hartwich, joins Wolfgang Müller on SBS Radio to discuss this in German. Read more
The rationales of individual freedom and personal responsibility with Eric Crampton, head of research at The New Zealand Initiative, on economics and digital content: copyright, censorship and Netflix. Read more
You may have heard last week that 62 individuals have the same wealth as the bottom half of humanity. That is, there are 62 people with the combined total wealth as the poorest 3.6 billion people in the world. Read more