New Zealand's current fiscal policy framework has been in place for nearly 20 years. At its core is a set of principles around maintaining prudent levels of public debt and running fiscal surpluses on average over time. This framework, combined with an extended period of economic growth,...

New Zealand's fiscal policy framework has been in place for nearly 20 years. At its core is a set of principles around maintaining prudent levels of public debt and running fiscal surpluses on average over time. This framework, combined with an extended period of economic growth, contributed to...

New Zealand’s fiscal policy framework has been in place for nearly 20 years. At its core is a set of principles around maintaining prudent levels of public debt and running fiscal surpluses on average over time. This framework, combined with an extended period of economic growth, contributed...

Over the past decade or so, aggregate data suggest a trend increase in housing equity withdrawal in Australia, potentially stimulating household spending. However, there has been little disaggregated information on how equity is being withdrawn and injected, the characteristics of households...

We use the Reserve Bank of New Zealand's macroeconomic model (FPS) to look at the feasibility of using monetary policy to reduce variability in output, the exchange rate and interest rates while maintaining an inflation target. Our experiment suggests that policy could be altered to increase the...

Central banks have become progressively more transparent in explaining to the public the rationale for a given monetary policy decision, often using economic projections as a vehicle for explaining policy issues. Nevertheless, increased transparency poses potential risks, particularly if the...

New Zealand and Australia have recently had large import price increases on the back of currency depreciations. Despite these large import price shocks, consumer prices have not risen as strongly as would be suggested by previously accepted relationships. The recent prolonged period of general...

The Reserve Bank of New Zealand is relatively unique in that our macroeconomic projections include a variable nominal interest rate path over the projection period. This approach is different from the constant nominal interest rate assumption used by most other central banks. In New Zealand, the...