The economies of the former Soviet Bloc experienced large declines in output during the decade of transition which began with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Yet there are many reasons to believe that measured output and official deflators provide a poor proxy for the change in real...

Human capital is increasingly believed to play an important role in the growth process, however, adequately measuring its stock remains controversial. In this paper three general approaches to measurement are identified; cost-based, income-based and educational stock-based. This survey focuses on...

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...

The current account deficit in the balance of payments has frequently surfaced in public policy debate, with many commentators asserting that low household saving is a major cause of these deficits. Yet, in standard macroeconomic theory, both the current account balance and household saving are...

New Zealands average income, defined as GDP per capita, is now three quarters that of Australia and even lower than in Australias 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 close...

Immigrants are typically found to have less wealth and hold it in different forms than the native born. These differences may affect both the economic assimilation of immigrants and overall portfolio allocation when immigrants are a large share of the population, as in New Zealand. In this...

The extent to which people are saving for retirement is a key element in formulating public policy toward saving and retirement incomes. This paper adopts a life cycle model of wealth accumulation to estimate the saving rates that people would need in order to have an adequate income in...

This paper uses data from the Survey of Family, Income and Employment to estimate saving by the household sector in New Zealand during 2004--2006. Even our most conservative estimate is that at least 14% of gross income was saved during this period. By contrast, the indirectly derived Household...