Discussion on policy in NZ for the week
This is a list post – so make of it what you will.
Bill Kaye-Blake has been discussing the macroeconomy in New Zealand (*,*,*), and hunting for a way to make the narrative clearer – I’ve been chatting about it with him in commetns, and Eric Crampton listed up some points here. Reframing the narrative is important to me, and has led me to experimenting with ways of communicating ideas about the macroeconomy. Brian Fallow shows the importance not just of clarity, but of indicating that there is no “silver bullet” in his great op-ed.
Grant Spencer has also made a point of communicating about “other tools” that the RBNZ might use, and why they would do such a thing. The Bank knows that outside their role as protectors of monetary policy, they have to take into account the general stability of the financial system – and they want measures that they use for this to be as transparent as possible.
On the not of communication and narrative, Norman Gemmell has started a series of articles on the NZ Herald discussing issues of the day. He is an awesome economist, and I’m greatly looking forward to these posts. The first post tries to lay out the idea of asset sales on more objective grounds!
This brings me to Treasury. They have noted the mixture of calls about austerity, the economic cycle, structural problems, and decided to spark things off with a piece that looks at the impact of “fiscal policy” in a macroeconomic sense. This is a piece I intend to go through and write about in time 🙂
All in all, a good week for discourse. Nice.
Just caught the Treasury piece too… looks like it’ll be a fun one!
It looks like the sort of thing that will be abused by analysts of all stripes and codes to support whatever they currently believe – good fun!
I haven’t read it yet, but I have no doubt I’ll use it to try to say that the rising scale of government has pushed up the real exchange rate – clearly illustrating the link between growing redistribution and some of the complaints of manufacturers … and therefore as a society we need to accept that these costs are part of what happens when we move to intervene in more areas.
I love papers like that! The LSE just released a report on creating medium-term growth in the UK that, conveniently, seems to support everybody’s prejudices. With recommendations for more competition in education, but more Government involvement in infrastructure, it really does have something for everyone.
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