The paper distinguishes between the classic or traditional foreign banks with their emphasis on corporate and wholesale banking, and the innovators responding to transition, deregulation or crisis in emerging markets. The innovators come in three varieties—bettors, prospectors and...

In the financial crisis literature, it is usually argued that, contrary to the case of currency crises, building a time series index to identify banking crisis episodes is highly difficult, particularly because of the lack of reliable data on banking sector variables (non-performing loans,...

In a classical article, Granger (1966) argued that the levels of most economic time series have spectra that exhibit a smooth declining shape with considerable power at very low frequencies. He termed it "the typical spectral shape of an economic variable." Granger's assertion has not been...

Although a number of studies have been conducted on health production functions, little attention has been given to pharmaceuticals as a separate input into the production of health. Building upon existing published work, this paper uses an alternative specification and more recent data to...

The increased use of information and communications technology (ICT) has helped to raise Australia’s productivity growth, according to a new Commission study. It has enabled firms to innovate in what they do and how they do it. ICT Use and Productivity: A Synthesis from Studies of Australian...

Carbon sequestration in plantation forests provides the main means by which New Zealand will meet its international climate change obligations in the first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol (2008–2012). However, without active policy, forests are unlikely to contribute as much in...

This paper looks at the impact on Australia’s trade in crops (non-wheat grains and oilseeds) where GM technology has been introduced. The model includes assumptions about the productivity gains of GM crops, possible consumer responses and regulatory costs for Australia and its major trading...

Rules of origin arrangements under the Australia–New Zealand Closer Economic Relations Trade Agreement (CER) were referred to the Commission for examination and report by May 2004. The request stemmed from concerns that Australian and New Zealand firms were having difficulty achieving the...

Deterministic simulations with the Reserve Bank of New Zealand’s core FPS model show how New Zealand’s broad macroeconomic environment might have evolved over the 1990s, if a US nominal yield curve and US TWI exchange rate movements under a common currency arrangement had been...

The work of Gwartney, Holcombe and Lawson (GHL, 1998) is cited in New Zealand debate to demonstrate that a larger government share of GDP is detrimental for economic growth. Their work is reassessed here. We find a number of omissions in their analysis lead to a considerable over- statement of...