New Zealand real interest rates have on average over the past two decades been high relative to most other countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). This paper argues that New Zealand’s relatively high interest rates are currently the outcome of domestic...

Reliable estimates of actual household saving rates in New Zealand have proved elusive as existing sources of data have in the past given disparate estimates, making it difficult to reach a consensus of the real rate of household saving. For the first time in New Zealand, however, longitudinal...

Concern has been raised by an apparent lack of saving in New Zealand. It is often argued that policies which foster savings are important, as higher savings will contribute to higher economic growth. This paper investigates the link between saving, investment and growth. In particular, it...

The purpose of this paper is to extend the simulation analysis of population ageing in Guest, Bryant and Scobie (2003). In that paper a single-good Ramsey-Solow model was calibrated for New Zealand and used to simulate the impact of population ageing on optimal national saving and average living...

Over the next 50 years, New Zealand’s population will age substantially. There has been wide debate about whether New Zealand should prepare for population ageing by increasing national savings. The debate had not, however, involved explicit consideration of possible time paths for savings,...

Household saving can be measured as either the difference between the flows of current income and expenditure, or through households’ balance sheets as changes in the stocks of accumulated net wealth. This paper examines household saving in New Zealand and other OECD countries, with particular...