The main purpose of this paper is to supplement the existing literature by quantifying the elasticity of New Zealand's current account to changes in the real exchange rate. The unusual composition of New Zealand's current account balance – particularly the large income deficit and the...

In this paper we estimate labour supply using a discrete choice approach for single men, single women and single parents and a joint labour supply equation for couples in New Zealand. The data are based on pooled cross-sectional data from the Household Economic Survey over 2006/07 to 2010/11. We...

This paper fits hidden Markov switching models to New Zealand GDP data. A primary objective is to better understand the utility of these methods for modelling growth and volatility regimes present in the New Zealand data and their interaction. Properties of the models are developed together with...

The assumption behind discrete hours labour supply modelling is that utility-maximising individuals choose from a relatively small number of hours levels, rather than being able to vary hours worked continuously. Such models are becoming widely used in view of their substantial advantages,...

This paper presents results for four separately estimated sets of discrete choice labour supply models using the Household Economic Surveys from 1991/92 up to 2000/01. The New Zealand working-age population is divided into sole parents, single men, single women, and couples. The labour supply...

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...

This paper examines the simulated labour supply responses to the personal tax and transfer policy changes introduced in New Zealand in 2010, and the implications for revenue and income distribution. The main changes examined are the increase in the GST rate from 12.5 to 15 per cent, along with...

New Zealand's Current Account of the Balance of Payments has been persistently in deficit since the early 1970s and increased markedly during the late 1990s. Is this a cause for significant concern? This paper tackles this question by evaluating New Zealand's external solvency, the degree of...

New Zealand has for a long-time lived with a large and negative international investment position, mainly in the form of private debt intermediated through the banking system. These debts create economic risks. Fortunately New Zealand's good institutional and policy arrangements provide economic...

This paper develops a new open economy structural VAR model of the New Zealand economy. The model adopts techniques introduced by Cushman and Zha (1997) and Dungey and Pagan (2000) to identify international and domestic shocks and dynamic responses to these shocks in a small open economy. The...