Do Workplace Contracts Harm Labour Productivity Growth? A Reconsideration of the Macroeconomic Evidence from New Zealand

This article reconsiders the argument advanced or endorsed by a large number of leading Australian academics and others that labour productivity growth in New Zealand fell markedly during the period in which New Zealand's Employment Contracts Act 1991 (ECA) was operative—that is, for most of the 1990s. On the one hand, based on total economy estimates developed by The Conference Board and the Groningen Growth and Development Centre, labour productivity growth was unexceptional though a little higher than the New Zealand average of the last three decades or so. On the other hand, based on newly released official estimates of New Zealand's ‘measured sector’ (which accounts for about two‐thirds of the total economy), labour productivity growth was almost identical to that of Australia during the EC A period. This in turn suggests that New Zealand's labour productivity growth rose markedly for the measured sector during the EC A years. All in all, the evidence presented in this article is inconsistent with claims that the period of the EC A was associated with relatively weak New Zealand productivity growth. Selected issues arising from these findings are briefly canvassed.     

国家公园管护员制度的国际比较 研究

国家公园管护员制度既是生态环境实地保护的重要 保障，也是满足社区发展、访客游憩服务管理等人类利用需求 的重要手段，对于协调国家公园人与自然关系、实现“人与自 然和谐相处”具有重要意义。针对中国国家公园管护员制度 尚处起步阶段的现状，通过国际比较研究，对比美国、澳大利 亚、新西兰、日本、乌干达、英国国家公园管护员制度特征， 提出我国国家公园管护员制度建设的6项建议：明确原则定 位、坚持文化认同、优化管理体系、注重能力提升、建设执法 队伍、强化科研服务。     

The impact of monetary policy on financial markets in small open economies: More or less effective during the global financial crisis?

This paper estimates the impact of monetary policy on exchange rates and stock prices of eight small open economies: Australia, Canada, the Republic of Korea, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand. On average across these countries in the full sample, a one percentage point surprise rise in official interest rates leads to a 1% appreciation of the exchange rate and a 0.5–1% fall in stock prices, with somewhat stronger effects in OECD countries than non-OECD countries (though differences are sometimes not significant). We find little robust evidence of a change in the effect of monetary policy surprises during the recent financial crisis.     

Real Effects of Monetary Policy in New Zealand

This article analyses the dynamic effects of unexpected domestic and foreign monetary policy shocks on industrial output in New Zealand based on a new open economy macroeconomic model. Empirical analyses are performed using unrestricted recursive open economy vector autoregressive models involving policy and non‐policy variables for New Zealand and four of its most important trading partners (that is, Australia, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States). The empirical findings are in accord with the qualitative predictions of the conventional monetary transmission mechanism applicable to a small open economy. Consequently, no empirical anomalies are observed in the dynamic behaviour of New Zealand industrial output in response to restrictive monetary innovations of domestic and foreign origin.     

Worldwide Tax Reform ‘How Does Australia Compare?’

Drawing principally on the English-speaking countries, where tax reform has proceeded furthest, the common characteristics and causes of the worldwide tax reform movement of the 1980s are examined. Tax reform reflected the change in economic philosophy — disillusionment with state intervention and a revival of belief in the efficacy of markets.
The causes and content of tax reform in Australia have much in common with those elsewhere except that the reduction in marginal rates of income tax was achieved with no real change in the tax mix. The success of tax reform is assessed using as criteria: (i) how far the outcome matched the objectives specified by the reformers themselves — in particular tax neutrality; (ii) the sustain-ability of the reforms; and (iii) how far 'undesirable' consequences (especially distributional effects) were avoided. Applying these criteria to Ireland, Canada, the United Kingdom, the United States, New Zealand and Australia, it is concluded that in all these countries there are deficiencies, but Australia comes second to New Zealand in the success league. The notable Australian deficiencies are the lack of a broad-based consumption tax (Australia is now the only OECD country without one) and the fact that lower marginal rates of income tax have been achieved mainly because of falling real thresholds of the tax brackets.     

A REVISIT OF INTERNATIONAL STOCK MARKET LINKAGES: NEW EVIDENCE FROM RANK TESTS FOR NONLINEAR COINTEGRATION

Based on a theory proposed for the possible link between financial market integration and nonlinear cointegration, this study reinvestigates international stock market linkages by performing both conventional linear cointegration tests and newly developed rank tests for nonlinear cointegration. The stock price indexes of Australia, Japan, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States are used, with daily data spanning from 29 May 1992 to 10 April 2001. Much more evidence of market integration emerges from nonlinear than linear cointegration analysis, suggesting that comovements among various national stock markets may well take nonlinear forms. Our findings challenge the conclusion of market segmentation reached in some previous studies that only conducted linear cointegration analysis.     

Do central banks respond to exchange rate movements? Some new evidence from structural estimation

This paper investigates the impact of exchange rate movements on the conduct of monetary policy in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. We develop and estimate a structural general equilibrium model, in which monetary policy is represented as a simple rule and exchange rate pass‐through is incomplete due to the presence of local currency pricing and distribution services. We find that the Bank of Canada, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, and the Bank of England have not adjusted interest rates in response to exchange rate movements since the adoption of inflation targeting, while our model selection results for Australia are less clear.     

Potential Growth and Inflation: Estimates for Australia, the United States and Canada

Estimates of potential output growth for Australia, the United States and Canada are presented and analysed in this article. We define potential growth as that growth rate consistent with a steady (domestic component of the) inflation rate (SIRG). At around 4 per cent per annum, Australia's SIRG has been relatively stable for the past 30 years, which seems inconsistent with the view that wide‐ranging microeconomic reform in the 1990s raised growth potential. However, we show that the reduction in employment growth in Australia from the 1980s to the 1990s may account for the absence of a rise in potential growth. In Canada and the United States the SIRGs are closer to 3 per cent, and we explore the reasons why potential growth estimates are higher for Australia than for North America. We also discuss why Australia's growth averaged less than its potential in the 1980s and 1990s and the possible use of our estimates for monetary policy purposes.     

New Economic Indicators for Australia, 1949-84

This article attempts to identify and describe the main characteristics of Australia'a business cycles during the period 1949 to 7984 with the aid of leading, coincident, and lagging indicators, using the methodology of the International Economic lndicator project at the Center for lnternational Business Cycle Research, Columbia University, New York. The methodology to identify Australia's classical cycle and growth cycle chronologies is discussed. Reviews are made of the lead-lag patterns of, first, both chronologies in relation to the specific cycles of the individual coincident indicators, and second, the growth chronology in relation to the leading and lagging indicators. Australia's growth cycle chronology is compared with the chronology of other countries, notably of United States, United Kingdom, and Japan. The general uses of an indicator analysis are reviewed. An appendix compares the reference cycle chronologies previously available for Australia and the indicators used to obtain them.     

Is the response of the bank of England to exchange rate movements frequency-dependent?

In this paper, we estimate a Small Open Economy Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium (SOEDSGE) model of the United Kingdom (UK), with the main focus being to test the hypothesis whether the Bank of England (BoE) responds to (frequency-dependent) exchange rate movements or not. For our purpose, we use an extended quarterly data set spanning the period of 1986:Q2 to 2018:Q1, which in turn includes the zero lower bound situation, and also estimate the SOEDSGE model based on observable data decomposed into its frequency components. We find that the BoE not only responds to exchange rate movements in a statistically significant manner, but also that it primarily focuses on long-term movements of currency depreciations more strongly than short-term fluctuations of the same. In general, our results are also confirmed for three other developed inflation-targeters namely, Australia, Canada and New Zealand.     

Productive and Unproductive Capital: A mapping of the New Zealand system of national accounts to classical economic categories, 1972‐95

New Zealand has gained considerable international attention for the neo-liberal economic reform programme it enacted from the mid-1980s; this programme has served as a model for similar reform elsewhere. Within the neoclassical framework of the reformers, the programme has produced many improvements to the economy. Such fundamental indicators as lower inflation, lower budget deficits and higher economic growth are cited as evidence of the improved economic conditions. Yet unemployment remains high, real interest rates are among the highest in the world, nominal interest rates and business confidence fluctuate considerably, and the balance of payments is deteriorating. Using a classical framework, this paper examines the neo-liberal reform of the New Zealand economy to see if there are alternative explanations for the persistence of these problems. The methodology developed by Shaikh & Tonak (1994) is used to map official national accounts data to classical economic categories for the 1972 to 1995 period. This approach is compared with earlier attempts at estimating classical economic categories for New Zealand. This classical view of the economic reforms is compared with the conventional view. The paper's main results are that there was a large increase in unproductive economic activity associated with the economic reforms in New Zealand; that the improvement in economic fundamentals emphasised by the reformers reflects this growth of unproductive activity; and that the persistence of other economic indicators is related to the ongoing weakness of productive activity.     

Catching Up and Convergence: Long-run Growth in East Asia

The paper attempts to combine the traditional learning model with the recent theory of economic growth using Maddison's long‐run real GDP per capita data of the three fastest growing countries in East Asia: Korea, Taiwan, and Japan. The authors first explain games of catching‐up among nations, and then explain the learning coefficients of Taiwan and Korea with Japan and the United States through periods before and after World War II. The model of leaning leads to the logistic model of economic growth of convergence between two countries. Using time‐series data, the coefficients of a logistic model are estimated to confirm that the real GDP per capita of Taiwan and Korea are converging to that of Japan and the United States, respectively. Similarly, Japan's GDP per capita converges to that of the United States. The time required for finite convergence for these countries is also estimated.     

中国未来经济增长及其国际经济地位展望

论文在分析国内外历史资料和经济增长因素的基础上 ,对中国和目前经济总量世界排名前五位国家的未来经济增长率、国内生产总值以及中国人均国内生产总值进行了预测 ,得出以下基本结论 :中国国内生产总值将于 2 0 0 5年超过法国 ,2 0 0 6年超过英国 ,2 0 1 2年超过德国 ,本世纪中叶 ,有可能超过日本 ,成为世界第二经济大国 ,但在本世纪内很难超过美国 ,成为世界第一经济大国 ;2 0 50年中国人均国内生产总值将达到中等发达国家 2 0 0 0年的水平。     

AUSTRALIAN BUSINESS CYCLE FACTS*

This paper documents the post-war business cycle facts for Australia. The Hodrick-Prescott filter is used to remove the trend component from quarterly macroeconomic series. The business cycle facts we report are the volatilities of the cyclical (detrended) series and their cross correlations with cyclical real output. These facts are consistent with the business cycle facts reported for the United States, the United Kingdom and New Zealand with one exception. For most of the period since 1974, the real wage in Australia is strongly counter-cyclical whereas for these countries it is procyclical.     

An analysis of the informational content of New Zealand data releases: The importance of business opinion surveys

We examine the informational content of New Zealand data releases using a parametric dynamic factor model estimated with unbalanced real-time panels of quarterly data. The data are categorised into 21 different release blocks, allowing us to make 21 different factor model forecasts each quarter. We compare three of these factor model forecasts for real GDP growth, CPI inflation, non-tradable CPI inflation, and tradable CPI inflation with three different real-time forecasts made by the Reserve Bank of New Zealand each quarter. We find that, at some horizons, the factor model produces forecasts of similar accuracy to the Reserve Bank's forecasts. Analysing the marginal value of each of the data releases reveals the importance of the business opinion survey data—the Quarterly Survey of Business Opinion and the National Bank's Business Outlook survey—in determining how factor model predictions, and the uncertainty around those predictions, evolve through each quarter.     

TOP INCOMES IN NEW ZEALAND 1921–2005: UNDERSTANDING THE EFFECTS OF MARGINAL TAX RATES, MIGRATION THREAT, AND THE MACROECONOMY

Using taxation statistics, we estimate the income share held by top income groups in New Zealand over the period 1921–2005. We find that the income share of the richest fell during the 1930s, rose again after the Second World War, and steadily declined from the late-1950s until the mid-1980s. From the mid-1980s until the mid-1990s, top income shares rose rapidly, particularly at the very top of the distribution. We present evidence that top marginal tax rates and changing top income shares in Australia and the United Kingdom may have contributed to fluctuations in the income share of the richest 1 percent. Past economic growth does not seem to have a strong effect on the income share of the top percentile group.     

The economic and trade effects of the UK–Korea free trade agreement on the United Kingdom,Korea, Japan,China, and the European Union

We explored a comparative static computable general equilibrium model with six regions and 12 sectors to estimate the impacts of the recent UK–Korea free trade agreement (FTA) along with the European Union (EU)–Korea FTA. The empirical results provide quantitative evidence of the impact on national GDP, national exports and imports by sector, and the changes in exports or imports among the United Kingdom, Korea, Japan, China, and the EU. The UK–Korea FTA, along with the EU–Korea FTA, increases GDP and welfare for the United Kingdom and Korea; moreover, there is a large increase in automobiles, transport equipment, and machinery exports between Korea and the United Kingdom. The GDP and welfare level of non-member countries such as Japan and China will slightly decline. Exports from the United Kingdom and Korea to non-member countries are also expected to decrease in most manufacturing sectors. The UK–Korea FTA will lead to increases in imports between the United Kingdom and Korea due to mutual trade creation effects and trade diversion effects. However, non-member countries such as Japan's exports are expected to experience a large decline in automobiles to the United Kingdom and in most manufacturing products to Korea due to the negative impact of the UK–Korea FTA.     

Measuring ‘indirect’ investments in ICT in OECD countries

ABSTRACT

ICT components, such as microprocessors, may be embodied in other capital goods not recorded as ICT in National Accounts. We name ‘indirect ICT investment’ the value of embodied ICT components in non-ICT investment. The paper provides estimates of ‘indirect ICT investment’ based on detailed and unpublished Supply-Use tables (SUT) in 12 OECD countries: Australia, Belgium, Canada, Chile, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Japan, Israel, Mexico, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Our main finding is that ICT investment appears significantly higher when considering its indirect component, the average increase being about 35%. The inclusion of indirect ICT investment, excluding software (for which firms’ expenditures are difficult to measure), changes significantly the relative position of countries with respect to the ICT intensity of their investments. The inclusion of software further increases indirect ICT investment but the increase is smaller (in percentage) than without this inclusion. A final result, but concerning only three countries, it that the diagnosis of a stabilisation, or even a decrease, of ICT investment in percentage of GDP or of total investment, observed from the beginning of the century, is not modified if we take into account the indirect ICT investment.     

What has New Zealand gained from The FTA with China?: Two counterfactual analyses†

We investigate the effects of the 2008 New Zealand (NZ)–China free trade agreement (FTA) on exports from NZ to China, and real GDP per capita in NZ using the synthetic control method to estimate the counterfactuals. NZ exports to China were more than 200% higher in 2014 than what they would have had the FTA never been signed. NZ's food and live animals exports to China were more than 180% higher in 2014 than the counterfactual. Our counterfactuals indicate a small but negative effect of the FTA on NZ's real GDP per capita between 2009 and 2012.     

Technology Foresight for Wiring Up the National Innovation System: Experiences in Britain, Australia, and New Zealand

Since 1990, technology foresight has spread rapidly. We begin by analyzing the reasons for this before examining the specific political background to technology foresight in the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand. The article analyzes and compares the approaches to foresight in these countries, identifying the strengths and weaknesses of each approach. We then propose a new rationale for technology foresight, which centers on its role in “wiring up” and thereby strengthening the national innovation system, before arriving at a number of conclusions.