Effective marginal tax rates can be very different from the statutory rate and vary across firms, reflecting such factors as the extent and nature of taxable deductions (losses, depreciation), asset and ownership structures, and debt/equity financing. We estimate firm-specific EMTRs and related...

This paper investigates the implications of population ageing and changes in labour force participation rates for projections of revenue obtained from personal income taxation and a consumption tax (in the form of a broad-based goods and services tax). A projection model is presented, involving...

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...

Copies of slides/presentations from course held 25 and 26 January on Industrial Organisation and Competition Policy prepared for NZ Government Officials. Downloadable documents in order: Network Economics Michael Katz The Appropriate Objective of Competition Policy Michael Katz Recent...

Electric companies policy makers and regulators around the world are facing calls for smart grid updates. Sometimes these upgrades make business sense and are undertaken by electric companies as has been the case with some smart grid investments in New Zealand. Frequently however the calls for...

In this study we estimate the social impact of privatisation by means of cost-benefit analysis. It includes assessing the performance of the privatised firm against counterfactual situations and examining economic efficiency at points in time as well as assessing the dynamic efficiency of...

Chris Hunt presented Paying for Urban Water Services: Some Insights from Across the Ditch at an ISCR in September 2007

The purpose of this paper is to identify the key issues surrounding ubiquity or universal service and equity or net neutrality in telecommunications with applications for New Zealand. This paper in its initial form was presented at the conference "Telecommunications: Ubquity and Equity in a...

The large-scale roll-out of so-called 'smart' electricity meters that record electricity consumption at frequent intervals gives electricity retailers the opportunity to vary price over the course of a day potentially better matching price to production cost. Of interest to both retailers and...

We study mobile data providers' pricing strategies and incentives to enter voluntary reciprocal international data roaming agreements. We show that roaming fees and retail prices charged to mobile data users at home and abroad vary under asymmetries in the domestic competition of providing...