Policy interventions that affect or are mediated through the family typically assume a behavioural response. Policy analyses proceeding from different disciplinary bases may come to quite different conclusions about the effects of policies on families, depending how individuals within families...

This paper applies an overlapping generations model in order to evaluate the implications of intergenerational smoothing of New Zealand’s future fiscal costs. The analysis complements the New Zealand fiscal projections of Bell et al. (2010) and the New Zealand tax smoothing analysis in Davis...

Demographic forecasts predict that over the next fifty years the proportion of people in New Zealand over the age of 65 will more than double, from 12 percent in 1999 to 26 percent in 2050. This paper reviews potential economic implications of this demographic change in the following broad...

This paper reviews evidence that a greater education causes better outcomes in life, over and above the effects of having a higher-paying job. Comparatively little has been written which draws together evidence on the wider (that is, wider than just earnings-related) benefits of education,...

The NZ Treasury is currently engaged in a project to identify cost-effective interventions to improve outcomes for children and young adults in order to maximise the value of government expenditures across the social sector. The central aim of this paper is to provide an empirically-robust...

The way in which people balance their work and family responsibilities is becoming increasingly prominent on the policy agenda. This paper uses an economic framework to explore the rationale for government policies to improve work/family balance. It finds that strongest economic grounds for...

This paper examines the sensitivity of inequality and poverty measures to the choice of adult equivalence scales and the type of income unit examined. Comparisons are made using parametric equivalence scales, and income units include individuals, equivalent adults and households. The results are...

The People’s Republic of China has become increasingly important to the New Zealand economy since the start of economic liberalisation in China more than 30 years ago, particularly in the past decade. This paper is the first of three looking at the impact of China on the New Zealand economy....

The People’s Republic of China has become increasingly important to the New Zealand economy since the start of economic liberalisation in China more than 30 years ago, particularly in the past decade. This paper is the second of three looking at the impact of China on the New Zealand economy....