Matt Nolan • Jan 09, 2014 •
Danyl posted about the recent Productivity Commission paper on Australia vs NZ productivity differences recently. If you ignore the politics and conspiracy (the timing of the paper was well known and they were asking people to write about it, hence why I wrote this at the time) he asks a good questions, why have we […] … Read More
Eric Crampton • Aug 20, 2013 •
Suppose that the correlation between one's sex life and earnings were actually causal, and worked from sex to income rather than the other way round. What correlation? This one: Having an active sex life may make you happier, healthier and wealthier... Read More
Matt Nolan • Jun 04, 2013 •
I had heard a rumor the Productivity Commission was going to make a blog – and what do you know here it is … Prod Blog (link fixed)! They are Continue Reading → … Read More
Shaun Hendy • May 24, 2011 •
It gave me a warm glow to see innovation put at the heart of Labour’s new policy offerings this week. As I said to the Herald last week, I held no optimism for R&D in the 2011 Budget: “Both our government R&D spending and our business R&D spending is pretty tragic, both in terms of our percentage of GDP … Read More
Shaun Hendy • Apr 20, 2011 •
Another great talk from Paul Callaghan, available on YouTube: Paul argues that New Zealanders have earned their prosperity by exploiting their environment. Not only does this bust the myth that we are clean and green, Paul points out that we are poorer for it: in fact, this strategy has seen our GDP … Read More
Shaun Hendy • Oct 20, 2010 •
In research and development, it’s often taken for granted that teams require a certain critical mass to be successful. Indeed, in a recent paper [1] two European researchers claim to have seen the effects of critical mass in the UK Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) and its French equivalent (HT: Mark Wilson). However, … Read More
Shaun Hendy • Aug 18, 2010 •
It seems to have become received wisdom recently that New Zealand must pick winners with its public science investment. In this post, I argue that this is not new: we picked our winners a long time ago, with a strong focus on agricultural and environmental sciences. So what are the pros and cons … Read More
Shaun Hendy • Jul 05, 2010 •
MoRST has released its national bibliometric report covering papers published during the years 2002-7. The team from MoRST and the Royal Society that put the report together used the Scopus database. The major findings include: • The rate and impact of New Zealand publications has increased during the period 2002-2007. This is especially so in the Tertiary Education … Read More
Shaun Hendy • May 09, 2010 •
I am getting towards the end of my discussion of Philip McCann’s paper, ’Economic geography, globalisation and New Zealand’s productivity paradox’ [1]. In my last post on this topic, I discussed the importance of agglomeration economies for knowledge based production. Agglomeration in the modern economy is thought to maximise the … Read More
Shaun Hendy • Mar 31, 2010 •
Let’s continue the discussion of Philip McCann’s paper, ’Economic geography, globalisation and New Zealand’s productivity paradox’, New Zealand Economic Papers, 43: 3, 279 – 314 (2009). In Part II, I looked in depth at the productivity paradox. As McCann notes, the debate about New Zealand’s poor productivity performance often focuses on regulation, taxation and institutions. However, McCann … Read More