Aggregate debt of the New Zealand household sector increased from 110 percent of household incomes in 2000 to a peak of 175 percent in 2008, and currently stands at 165 percent. The increase was large and historically unprecedented, but not exceptional compared to other countries' experience...

High and rapidly rising levels of household debt can be risky. A high level of debt increases the sensitivity of households to any shock to their income or balance sheet. And during periods of financial stress, highly indebted households tend to cut their spending more than their less- indebted...

This article describes New Zealand’s capital markets, and the role they play in the functioning of financial markets and the real economy. It describes the instruments and players involved, and analyses a unique dataset to provide some detail on the size of both the bond and equity markets,...

Sets out the results of recent work on the accuracy of IoP estimates, based on an analysis of sampling error.In recent times the key measure of quality used for the Index of Production (IoP) has been the revisions performance of key aggregates. This is published as a set of revisions triangles...

Sets out the reasons for these changes and their impact on the levels of detail ONS will publishIn January 2008, as part of a wider reprioritisation of the Office for National Statistics? (ONS) business, the sample size for the Monthly Production Inquiry (MPI) will be reduced by 17 per cent. Of...

Since August 2007, the global economy has been subject to a sharp and adverse financial shock, with re-pricing of risk and higher cost of funds. This article argues that this shock is a consequence of an unsustainable period of global economic growth involving very large external imbalances....

The integration of emerging markets such as China into the global economy has had a profound effect on the inflation process in advanced economies. This article examines the relationship between the integration of emerging Asia into the global economy and the inflation process in New Zealand,...

This article is an abridged version of a paper prepared for a conference commemorating the 80th anniversary of the Bank of Mexico held on 14-15 November. The theme of the conference was `Stability and Economic Growth: The Role of the Central Bank'. The article reviews New Zealand's economic...

This article examines ‘systemic’ banking crises in New Zealand. While there are examples of individual institutional failures in New Zealand’s early colonial development for example, there are only two episodes that have involved a significant erosion of banking system capital – our...