As we emerge from a deep and long recession, the debate must shift again to how New Zealand can lift its productivity growth rate. New Zealand has already done much work in getting the economic environment right for business growth. The reforms of the 1980s and early 1990s removed many of the...

NZIER has always had a strong interest in understanding the way in which the New Zealand economy interacts with the rest of the world. We have a long history of producing research into trade liberalisation and globalisation. As the global economy becomes ever more complex, we are now turning our...

New Zealand struggles to grow its economy partially due to its small size and remote location. There is little that can be done to change location, but the size can be increased over time. It is feasible to adopt a population policy with the aim of the population reaching 15 million in the next...

Most explanations of the current economic and financial crisis focus on its financial causes. Often missing in these explanations is a discussion of how the seeds of the crisis were sown by economic policies in major countries that fostered the growth of global imbalances during the 2000s....

New Zealand’s average income, defined as GDP per capita, is now three quarters that of Australia and even lower than in Australia’s poorest state, Tasmania. Over the last seven years, New Zealand has grown slightly faster than Australia,but at these rates, it would still take 140 years to...