In another of our warm up posts for discussing productivity we are going to discuss why national savings are important. As Fred states in this comment, savings are effectively deferred consumption. The incentive to defer consumption is based on individuals wish to “smooth consumption” over time (which relies on their time discount rate and expectations […]
Immediately following the release of the overseas merchandise trade data today the dollar slumped by about 20 basis points, however it didn’t stay down for long, more than recovering from this low point: Source NBNZ You might wonder why this fall and rise is even interesting – but the reasons behind it imply that issues […]
Over at the NBR comment page Trinh Le from NZIER discusses the research by John Gibson and herself into Kiwisaver and aggregate savings (here and research). The idea that Kiwisaver can actually reduce national savings is an important one – and something that one of us will post on soon, either before or during our […]
In a previous post we mentioned the Infometrics and Labour tax cut calculator. Now NZIER have updated their tax cut calculator that compares Australia and New Zealand – the excel model can be found on their front page (or here in the future): http://www.nzier.co.nz/ I also talked to Dr Nolan about the set of tax […]
Given my belief that these tax cuts, without corresponding cuts in (unproductive types of) government spending, will lead to greater inflationary outcomes I’ve decided it is important to argue the complete opposite case – namely that tax cuts will not impact on inflationary pressures and interest rates. The common view I work off when stating […]
Chris Worthington at Infometrics Ltd just created a tax cut calculator, it can be found here: http://www.infometrics.co.nz/taxcutcalculator.asp Enter your personal income and see what the Budget will do to it in October 2008, April 2010, and April 2011 (as there is no tax cut in April 2009 – likely a result of inflation concerns). This […]