The New Zealand Initiative

1 week ago | nzinitiative.org.nz | Nick Clark

Easter is here, a rare four-day weekend when many of us will travel for getaways, see family and friends, or host those who have travelled to us.   Yet Easter can be a trap for the unwary.  This evening, people will be going to bars and restaurants and the supermarket, and you will be able to purchase alcohol like any other day of the week. And then tomorrow, Friday, you won't. Then, on Saturday, you will. But on Sunday, you won't.

1 week ago | nzinitiative.org.nz | Roger Partridge

Reports & Media > Opinion > Supreme Court matters: statutory interpretation and constitutional balance Two ships passing in the night might share the same destination yet follow very different courses. So it seems with David Harvey’s latest response to my report for The New Zealand Initiative, Who Makes the Law? Reining in the Supreme Court.

1 week ago | nzinitiative.org.nz | Roger Partridge

As chairman of a business-funded think tank, I have been called many things — neoliberal, libertarian, right-wing, and even (indirectly) one of “Hayek’s Bastards.” But never left-wing. And certainly not “left of Jacinda Ardern.” That is, until I started writing about Donald Trump. Suddenly, people who once nodded along with my commitment to the rule of law, institutional checks and balances, and policymaking that respects facts over fiat began treating me as if I’d joined the radical left.

1 week ago | nzinitiative.org.nz | Oliver Hartwich

There is a devil in European literature who claims an unexpected virtue: he intends evil but accomplishes good. In Goethe’s masterpieceFaust, Mephistopheles – essentially the devil – tells us: “I am part of that power which eternally wills evil and eternally works good.”To read the full article on the Newsroom website, click here.

2 weeks ago | nzinitiative.org.nz | Eric Crampton

Many economists make international trade seem more complicated than it needs to be. Stephen Landsburg had a simple way of explaining it all.  Landsburg’s version goes as follows:“There are two technologies for producing automobiles in America. One is to manufacture them in Detroit, and the other is to grow them in Iowa. Everybody knows about the first technology; let me tell you about the second. First, you plant seeds, which are the raw material from which automobiles are constructed.