Using a unique dataset that covers all exporting firms in New Zealand from 1996 to 2007, this paper analyses the patterns of their product mix, how it changes over time and how this relates to firm characteristics. We suggest that looking at the relative importance of added and dropped products...

Previous work has suggested that New Zealand’s firm dynamics and business demographics show a high proportion of small firms, small average firm size, and high rates of firm and employment turnover by comparison with other OECD countries. This paper reports on new comparative analyses of New...

This paper examines the labour supply responses to the Working for Families (WfF) package of welfare reforms, which was fully implemented in 2008. The policy changes were implemented with the aim to encourage benefit recipients to participate in the labour market and to address income adequacy...

The objective of this paper is to analyse the extent to which membership of KiwiSaver has been associated with greater accumulations of net wealth. The paper utilises two linked sources of data which cover the period 2002 to 2010: Statistics New Zealand’s Survey of Family, Income and...

Increasing life expectancies and uncertainty about future retirement incomes are likely to lead to various changes in behaviour. As expectations are revised, one potentially important adjustment mechanism is in labour force participation rates. There is already evidence these are rising for...

KiwiSaver is a voluntary savings scheme aimed at increasing the retirement wealth of a target population. A critical element shaping the success of KiwiSaver is the extent to which individuals participate in the scheme, given its voluntary nature; and, having chosen to participate, the extent to...

This paper examines the implications for national savings of three retirement income policy options, designed to improve the fiscal sustainability of New Zealand Superannuation (NZS). A simple model is developed that employs population and longevity projections allowing estimation of the...

This paper presents stochastic projections for 13 categories of social spending in New Zealand over the period 2011-2061. These projections are based on detailed demographic estimates covering fertility, migration and mortality disaggregated by single year of age and gender. Distributional...

Estimates of marginal tax rates (MTRs) faced by individual economic agents, and for various ggregates of taxpayers, are important for economists testing behavioural responses to changes in those tax rates. This paper reports estimates of a number of personal marginal income tax rate measures for...

This paper analyses the relationship between net wealth and health using Waves 1 to 3 of the Survey of Family, Income and Employment (SoFIE). The results show that lower net wealth is associated with worse health over a range of differing measures of health. The paper acknowledges but does not...