| Abstract: | In this paper the author continues the work of Hawke, who used Australian velocity of money data to estimate New Zealand's GDP for 1870–1918, and whose results have been incorporated into international studies through the work of Bairoch. He also provides an alternative set of estimates for the inter-war years to those published by Lineham. The important findings of the paper are: (i) that Australian data show a significant relationship between the velocity of money and the price level; (ii) that New Zealand's income was significantly higher in 1870 than Hawke's estimates suggest; (iii) that sustained per capita growth has not been New Zealand's normal experience; (iv) that previous GDP estimates for the inter-war period have failed to reflect the fluctuations of the New Zealand economy and the extent to which it was operating below its production possibilities frontier during the Great Depression of the 1930s. |
