"In the Minister’s words, 'Going For Growth outlines the approach the Government is taking to turbo-charge our economy.' Yeah right.

 

"The Minister [of Finance] also used her speech to announce the launch of a Going for Growth website complete with a 44 page document (15 of which are photos and covers, and another 9 are lists of things (being) done) titled 'Going for Growth: Unlocking New Zealand’s Potential' – in the Minister’s words, 'Going For Growth outlines the approach the Government is taking to turbo-charge our economy.'
    
"Yeah right.

"Now, to be clear, there are some (mostly small) useful things the government has done in the area of economic policy. There are also some (fewer in number) overtly backward steps ... and some important areas where the government has so far failed to act at all .... There is [however] just nothing in what the Minister said, or in what the government has done (or has concretely indicated it will shortly do), that comes even close to being likely to 'turbo charge' the economy.

"It isn’t even clear that either the Minister or her Treasury advisers has anything close to a compelling model and narrative about how we got into the longer-term productivity mess, let alone how we might successfully get out of it (if any politicians really cared enough to want to do so).

"We are told ... that 'Leaders around the world are being compelled to act more boldly than they have for several decades.' But there isn’t much sign of it ..."

"We are told that 'New Zealand’s low capital intensity is a key driver ... of our poor productivity performance.' No one disputes that business investment as a share of GDP has been low in New Zealand for a long time ... So the capital stock per worker is, in some mechanical sense, quite low. ...

"But ... the mentality is all wrong. Low levels of capital intensity are at best seen as symptom not as any sort of cause or 'driver' of productivity growth failures economywide. New Zealand has never had a particularly problem attracting finance ... And we should assume that, on average, firms and potential investors are responding rationally, and even optimally on average, to the opportunities they face.

"So the issue is not that firms are failing to use enough capital in their production processes – they are most likely doing what is best for them – but that, having regard to all the other constraints (taxes, FDI rules, RMA regimes, other bits of regulation, real exchange rates) there just aren’t that many attractive projects here in New Zealand. A highly successful New Zealand economy would be likely to be more capital intensive (and generate higher wages), but focusing on the capital intensity or otherwise is the wrong lens with which to look at the problem.

"Firms and investors respond to opportunities, and sometimes (often) governments get in the road and make investment ... unattractive."

~ Michael Reddell from his post 'Willis and Rennie speaking'