Over at the Standard they have made an inference I agree with, namely that a subsidy doesn’t just increase consumer surplus, but they have taken it in a way I disagree with. Given I have no time I will just pull my comments out of the blog and put them here 🙂 I agree with […]
Now in the short term a look at the exchange rate is important for a monetary authority – as it is part of the “inflation targeting” framework. This is because a stronger dollar implies a lower prices level, which may in turn influence expectations of inflation or the credibility of the central bank to maintain […]
An Infometrics report for QBE has stated that house prices are expected to be 24% higher in three years time. As the Rates Blog says this implies that “inflation-adjusted house prices were currently 15% above their long-term trend-line but could get toward 30% above the trend by June 2012”. The people commenting on the blog […]
NZIER has released an “Insight” on internalities – specifically stating that this is one way we could justify some of the costs in the BERL alcohol report as being policy relevant. Eric Crampton discussed the release here. What are internalities? Internalities is the name for the cost associated with not being able to “commit” to […]
As mentioned here earlier, the high NZ dollar is a symptom of domestic imbalances not a cause – so instead of looking at intervening in the dollar we should be trying to understand exactly what is driving structural issues in the economy. A couple of articles that follow on in this view are: Brian Gaynor […]
Over at the Rates Blog Andrew Coleman has written a piece on fixed mortgage rates and the monetary policy transition mechanism. His initial point is that the ability of the Reserve Bank to smooth economic activity has been constrained by the fact that so many New Zealander’s hand fixed rate mortgages, compared to Australia where […]