Talk:Economy of New Zealand

Re-write?

This page needs to be rewritten from scratch: this article was originally created by the CIA for the CIA World Factbook, and unsurprisingly, is, to be blunt, flatly untruthful. New Zealand's incomes were at highest-in-the-world levels several decades ago, and have declined by the better part of %20 over the last two decades.

Yes, 203.109.254.58, you are absolutely right. It reads like a Thatcherite propaganda press release. Is there a New Zealander with the approriate skill set in the house? (By the way, why don't you create yourself a user account? You are doing lots of good stuff around here, you might as well sign in as yourself.) Tannin 19:49 Jan 11, 2003 (UTC)

Hi. I think "203.109.254.58" is actually my ISP's proxy-server IP, meaning anyone using my ISP becomes attributed to either that IP or one of several others. 4/5ths of what's under user-contributions for that address is other people's work, I know I don't know a thing about belly dancing :)

It would be difficult to find someone to write an article about New Zealand's economy, as the 'facts' to each individual depend on their political views, as NZ was an economic test-case etc etc.

I heartily agree. This is quite a "value-free" neoliberal summary of NZ's economic performance, and the 1984-1993 period really needs to be highlighted as distinct and highly important to the economy of NZ as a whole. Perhaps we need to have a sub-page from this linking to the 1984-1993 reforms specifically? I wrote an essay outlining the neoliberal, Keynesian, and Marxist interpretations of the 1945-1973 'Golden Weather' and the declining prospects post-1973, but it's 3000 words long and is perhaps not really Wikipedia-friendly. <2 hours later>...Right, I've put it here, kindof: WikiBooks: New Zealand Economics. Could someone please peruse it, comment, correct, and critique it, and perhaps summarise and link through from here? I would, but I'm still learning how to use Wiki (this is my first page :) ). kabl00ey 15:16:12, 2005-09-01 (UTC)

It's very difficult to balance this without a "What-if" machine. NZ's incomes may have been high back then, but that's not to suggest that without the reforms, they would have simply stayed that way. Rather we could have ended up with a scenario where no reforms meant NZ ended up slipping much further down. It may not have, so unless we can get some solid evidence either way about the effects of the reforms the article should take a middle of the road approach. It seems more widely accepted that at least some of the reforms were necessary, but the more controversial ones should be given with multiple interpretations. Nichlemn 08:07, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

Reformed to a free market economy

It's widely believed regardless of politics, that NZ was radically reformed to a free market economy it a very very short period of time and there were teething problems with this. There have been several academic articles citing NZ in this regard....—Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.109.254.40 (talk • contribs) 13 February 2004

Could you cite any?? Taifarious1 04:05, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

A starting point would be the references in Rogernomics.-gadfium 07:42, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

GDP

New Zealand's PPP GDP is now at US$92bn not US$78bn. Article needs updating.

The article definitely needs a rewrite/update. I'm not an expert at all (just a high school student looking up some last minute information for exams!) but even I can see that.

"New Zealand has a very small current account deficit of 8-9% of GDP."

"The large current account deficit, which stood at more than 6.5% of GDP in 2000, has been a constant source of concern for New Zealand policymakers and has now hit 9% to date as of March 2006."

Is it large or small? And what is it now?

I might work on it after I finish exams, but if someone else knows more about this, it'd be great if they could step in... Simulato (talk) 08:01, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

I've asked the editor who recently changed this part of the article to reply to your question, and in the meantime restored the article to its previous state for consistency.-gadfium 08:49, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Hmm... I used small because for a deficit, 8-9% is small (as we are already assuming its going to be negative anyways). But compared to other industrial nations e.g. Britain and Japan it is quite bad. And after reading my amendments again, it is wrong to word it like I did so, in the context it was given. But also, it would be better to compare it with public debt, as this will also be relevant for readers. The public debt is only 21.2% of GDP (CIA 2006 est.). It would be nice if this remark is mentioned next to it. --Waqas1987 (talk) 12:38, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

added some more context information. Ingolfson (talk) 10:34, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

"Impressive Growth in the 21st Century" isn't part of "Economic Reforms of the 1980s"

There were major economic reforms between 1984 and 1991. But the major reforms started in 1985 and were mostly done by 1991 when the Employment Contracts Act came in.

This article lumps New Zealand's impressive economic growth from 1999-2007 in as the second paragraph of the section on the reforms that took place 1984-1991. Even if you think there's a causal link (and we could argue about that), they are not part of the same thing! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 222.154.239.116 (talk) 02:04, August 30, 2007 (UTC)

Can you provide any sources regarding your assertions? New Zealand, to my knowledge, and along with Hong Kong and Singapore is a free market success story. You shouldn't only look at income but income relative to prices so as to determine the true standard of living. Considering inflation was high prior to the reforms, it would make sense wages would correspondingly be higher.

I agree with those who say this article reeks of POV issues. Since the 90's the New Zealand economy has been completely hollowed out. Only a shell now remains of New Zealand's former prosperity. Although not mentioned much, New Zealand has been completely devastated by the economic crisis. WjtWeston (talk) 00:06, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

The "growth" 1990-2007 was actually the upside of an economic bubble. WjtWeston (talk) 00:09, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

Inequality

Can anyone tell me the level of income inequality in New Zealand compared to other developed nations, including the United States? 216.174.165.54 20:31, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

Look at List of countries by income equality.-gadfium 01:02, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

Poverty

Although NZ doesn't have an official poverty line (only a few countries don't), much work has been done to quantify relative poverty (starting from Kelsey), and the past year countless articles and initiatives surrounding child poverty. Adding in a timelime of poverty index for the past 30 years would IMO add greatly to the credibility of this article. Are any of the academic research groups ready to release their findings? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.237.198.23 (talk) 23:37, 1 July 2013 (UTC)

Dependent Economies

Shouldn't there be some mention of the economies of other nations that are heavily dependent on New Zealand, particularly Pacific Island Nations like Tonga, Niue, Samoa, Tokelau, Solomon Islands etc. for trade and development aid and what-not, because from what I've seen this article focuses mainly on the foreign trade that NZ relies on. Taifarious1 01:09, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Short answer: Yes, there should. Feel free! Ingolfson (talk) 07:32, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

From "New Zealand" article

I trimmed the following referenced sentences from the New Zealand article. They could slot in here, or be returned there if deemed important enough. AIRcorn (talk) 06:17, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

• In 2010, New Zealand's economy ranked as the fourth freest in the world according the Heritage Foundation's Index of Economic Freedom.

• Ongoing economic challenges for New Zealand include a current account deficit of 2.9% of GDP, slow development of non-commodity exports and tepid growth of labour productivity.

• New Zealand has a relatively laissez-faire capitalist economy according to the Fraser Institute think tank.

• The country was ranked 1st in education and 5th in overall prosperity in the 2010 Legatum Institute prosperity index.

Will take India off of list

Will take India off of NZ main trading partner in first sentence. India doesn't appear anywhere near the list by volume - 2005:

Australia China Germany Indonesia Italy Japan South Korea Malaysia Singapore Taiwan Thailand UK United States

Source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_relations_of_New_Zealand — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.225.28.6 (talk) 03:48, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Irrelevant information.

There is a significant amount of irrelevant information on this page which I feel is not relevant to the topic. What evidence is their that the economic reforms cause the increase in suicide rates? As far as I can tell there is only a pure correlation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 27.252.243.121 (talk) 00:58, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

The material you have removed is as follows:

Between 1984 and 1999 New Zealand's economy and social capital faced a steady decline: the youth suicide rate grew sharply into one of the highest in the developed world; the proliferation of food banks increased dramatically; marked increases in violent and other crime were observed;

There is little in the way of hard evidence for the economy causing many things. Correlation is usually sufficient. If you don't think that suicide figures are relevant, why did you leave health care in the article? (I note that you removed it on the first occasion, but you also removed such indicators as unemployment, foreign debt and credit rating with that edit.) Surely the increase in food banks is pretty closely connected to the economy, but you took that out.-gadfium 01:53, 23 September 2012 (UTC)

I have reverted 27.252.243.121's last edit and restored the paragraph deleted. This paragraph had reliable sources. 'Proof of causation' is not a criteria used on Wikipedia. If there is a concern over lack of NPOV, whole sale use of the delete key is not the answer. I suggest you could have either tagged the section as needing clarification or being POV. Or you could have provided alternative view points, or have reworded the paragraph to achieve NPOV. Mrfebruary (talk) 01:32, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

Data from 22 years ago?

This is weird:

Household income or consumption by percentage share:

• Lowest 10%: 0.3% (1991)
• Highest 10%: 29.8% (1991)

Tony (talk) 08:43, 2 August 2013 (UTC)

GDP make-up

The stats for GDP make-up are flat-out wrong, and uncited. Judging by the claim that agriculture is 4.7% of GDP, my guess is the initial editor misread this report and mistook a 4.7% *increase* in agriculture's contribution to GDP as agriculture contributing 4.7% to GDP.

In the absence of better stats, I've removed the section entirely; someone who can find correct figures is welcome to add it in. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Behemoth01 (talk • contribs) 09:21, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

• Not far wrong. Updated 2014 sector stats with citation. Tymentyne (talk) 21:18, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

Largest trading partners

The claim that China is New Zealand's "largest trading partner" in 2013 is uncited and appears to be incorrect according to Statistics New Zealand. --LJ Holden 03:38, 3 December 2014 (UTC)

Profile section

I'm slowly working my way through the article - there's a lot of stuff that is repeated, especially the "Profile" section which is largely a repeat of the History section. Unless anyone objects I will integrate what is currently in the Profile section with the History section. --LJ Holden 10:35, 8 December 2014 (UTC)

Inequality information repeat

There is a lot of information being repeated on this article, making it lengthy. A recent edit expanded one of the sub-sections on New Zealand's economic history to add articles relating to inequality, which has its own section. I don't think its helpful to repeat this information in multiple places -as I've found a lot of the references are being doubled (in one case tripled) up, making the article even longer. --LJ Holden 02:10, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

Also, there's the Social class in New Zealand article where this material could go. --LJ Holden 08:56, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

The inequality section is in need of a rewrite - it is very biased, and comments like "Then in 1991, benefits were also cut back substantially as part of the 'reforms' and those on welfare have been struggling ever since." lack references and are obviously influenced by the authors beliefs. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 101.98.210.4 (talk) 02:36, 8 January 2015 (UTC)