Industrial policy is once more on the agenda of many governments. There is a long history of Industrial Policies (IP) aimed at promoting a particular sector of an economy. When Henry VIII abandoned ...

No attention is paid to what will be the future composition of economic activity. It assumes that the growth will happen and that the required businesses – critically, exports – will appear. After all ...

Shane Jones is committed to state-led economic development.

Following the Richardson/Shipley 1990 ‘redesign of the welfare state’ – which eliminated the universal Family Benefit and doubled the rate of child poverty – various income supplements for families ...

In this column I use the less familiar measure of GDP per capita instead of the GDP measure favoured by the commentariat. I became familiar with it when I began doing international comparisons because ...

Angus Deaton’s ‘Economics in America’ challenges the direction that economics has taken. In 2015 Angus Deaton was the sole awardee of the Bank of Sweden’s Prize in Honour of Alfred Nobel, for his ...

A close analysis of the Treasury assessment of the Medium Term in its PREFU 2023 suggests the economy may be entering a new phase. Last week I explained that the forecasts in the just published ...

Implementing the New Zealand Health and Disability System review not only involves major technical problems but creates fascinating political tensions. The government is promising to redisorganise the ...

Winning office is not the same as achieving change. A recent Economist columnist divided politicians and their political advisers into either ‘jock wankers’ or ‘nerd wankers’. It’s a distinction which ...

Catholics have a name for potential successors to a dead pope. Papabile. The small coterie of distinguished cardinals who have what it takes to step up. Todd Muller has always been one. I first met ...

Does the Autumn 2024 British budget point to a change in fiscal strategies? Many countries found their fiscal position was unsustainable, following the 2008 Global Financial Crash. Their public ...

Trying to organise the electricity system around a competition model based on financial markets does not make sense. Four centuries ago, theologians wondered how public virtue could be generated from ...