Source: IMF Global Housing Watch.
New Zealand tops world in growth in the housing price to income ratio
13 Jul 2016 Leave a comment
in economics of regulation, politics - New Zealand, urban economics Tags: housing affordability, land supply, zoning
New Zealand tops the developed world in housing price growth in 2015
13 Jul 2016 Leave a comment
in economics of regulation, politics - New Zealand, urban economics Tags: housing affordability, land supply, zoning
Source: IMF Global Housing Watch.
If it was 2007 again, what would @jamespeshaw @PhilTwyford do on housing affordability?
08 Jul 2016 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, economics of regulation, politics - New Zealand, urban economics
Source: Housing ‘challenge’ still not a ‘crisis’ | Radio New Zealand News.
Neither Labour nor the Greens have explained where the new land will come from inside the Auckland Metropolitan Limit to build their 100,000 additional houses nor why their proposals will be granted resource consents under existing resource management legislation.
The National Party is unwilling to push shared with resource management law reform despite having 61 votes to do so because of fear of losing votes in the centre.
Meet San Francisco’s YIMBYs @PhilTwyford @dbseymour
29 Jun 2016 Leave a comment
in economics, economics of regulation, law and economics, urban economics Tags: land supply, land use planning, NIMBYs, zoning
Desperately seeking to agree with @JulieAnneGenter on transport investment quality
11 Jun 2016 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, economics of bureaucracy, environmental economics, politics - New Zealand, Public Choice, transport economics, urban economics Tags: cost benefit analysis, KiwiRail, New Zealand Green Party, road pricing
I just wrote an op-ed for National Business Review online (pay-walled) agreeing with an op-ed last week by Green MP Julie Anne Genter on transport investment. My op-ed started
The Taxpayers’ Union welcomes the commitment of the Green Party yesterday to evaluating transport investments without any bias or favouritism to one transport mode over another.
The Taxpayers’ Union could not agree more with Julie Anne Genter when she said that the question ministers should always ask is “what is the best investment we can make?”
This op-ed was my rejoinder to her reply to my op-ed criticising a recent Green Party on national freight policy. That policy called for 25% of all freight by kilometres travelled to each go by rail and road. That would near double their freight market share from 30% currently to 50% when measured by kilometre.
For my troubles I got nothing but criticism and accusations in the comments section in National Business Review Online. A tweet by Genter was far more gracious.
There was no praise in the comment section at the National Business Review online for agreeing with the Green policy. In the first comment I was told I did not understand economics and that
When the policy default is “cut taxes and spending and let me selfishly keep my money” they miss out on the much larger benefit to everyone, including themselves, by nudging or economy to spend more on intrinsically more efficient transport – like rail – and less on alternatives.
No thanks at all for agreeing that transport investments should be the best we can make. After saying that in their recent freight policy, the Greens set targets were specific transport technologies they favour, which are rail and sea freight.
You cannot argue that transport investments should be the best we can make then declare a preference for a particular technology or mode of transport. But let us not quibble over that glaring contradiction.
The broader principle was agreed which is transport investments should be driven by cost benefit analysis and value for money. It should be technology neutral and transport mode neutral. That, of course, means the Greens cannot declare targets for the market shares of particular modes of freight shipment if they want to follow their own policy about value for money.
NZ House price index for selected territorial authority areas, 1989–2014
09 Jun 2016 Leave a comment
in economic history, economics of regulation, politics - New Zealand, urban economics
Homeless means living rough or in a car @DavidReiMiller @greencatherine @secondzeit
06 Jun 2016 Leave a comment
in politics - New Zealand, poverty and inequality, public economics, urban economics Tags: economics of housing, homelessness, social insurance, welfare state
Statistics New Zealand spent 21 pages trying to define the term homeless. How Orwellian.
When I first moved to Canberra and when I moved back, I stayed with friends. Some regard that as being homeless under the Statistics New Zealand definition, much to my own surprise.
I qualify because I shared accommodation . Having shared or short-term accommodation is not homeless. The descriptions shared and short-term accommodation quite adequate to the task.
People living in temporary accommodation including with friends are not homeless. Their situation is unsatisfactory but describing it does not justify butchering the English language by conflating their inconveniences with the few hundred people who live rough each night.
Source: New Zealand Parliament – Homelessness in New Zealand.
Those that conflate having a roof over your head tonight with living rough take advantage of the great sympathy people have for those living rough for people in far less dire situations.
@JulieAnneGenter doesn’t know what is shipped through ports
24 May 2016 Leave a comment
in environmental economics, global warming, politics - New Zealand, transport economics, urban economics Tags: celebrity technologies, New Zealand Greens
The Greens today announced a policy to double the amounts of cargo moved by train and shipping. It seems to have forgotten that most cargo moved by ship is bulk cargoes such as cars. Nothing can change the fact that once the ship is unloaded, the cars have to go by truck to the car yard.
Source: New Zealand Institute of Economic Research. Port study 2 Final report NZIER report to Auckland Council (3 February 2015).
Privatizing local bus services could save $5.7 billion
19 May 2016 Leave a comment
in industrial organisation, politics - New Zealand, politics - USA, privatisation, survivor principle, theory of the firm, transport economics, urban economics Tags: privatisation, state owned enterprises
How green art thou? #buswaysforelectriccars not #BuswaysForBuses
06 May 2016 Leave a comment
in energy economics, environmental economics, environmentalism, politics - New Zealand, transport economics, urban economics Tags: busways, do gooders, electric cars, expressive politics, global warming, trade-offs, transport lobby
Finally have something nice to say about electric cars. They will put bus lanes to good use.
A trivial percentage of people take the bus to work In New Zealand. The government has a target of doubling electric car fleet every year (from 2000 in 2016 to 64,000 in 2021).
This decision yesterday to allow them to use busways allows us to relish in seeing environmentalists feud over which technologies are green enough to have access to priority lanes on the road such as those allocated to buses.
Which is more important? Saving the planet or saving the buses; most of them are diesel? Busways are empty at the weekends and many other times.
Landmarking Is Turning New York City Into a Life-Sized Historical Diorama
01 May 2016 1 Comment
in applied price theory, applied welfare economics, economics of regulation, urban economics Tags: landmark preservation, zoning
Source: Landmarking Is Turning New York City Into a Life-Sized Historical Diorama – Hit & Run : Reason.com
And the beat goes on – housing prices since 1975 @PeterDunneMP @PhilTwyford
24 Apr 2016 Leave a comment
in applied welfare economics, politics - New Zealand, Public Choice, rentseeking, urban economics Tags: Auckland, housing affordability, land supply, land use planning, NIMBYs, Resource Management Act, urban limits, zoning
New Zealand housing prices were pretty flat up for the two decades until the passage of the Resource Management Act (RMA) in 1993. They then soared well before any foreign buyers such as from China entered the market.
Source: International House Price Database – Dallas Fed December 2015; nominal housing prices for each country is deflated by the personal consumption deflator for that country.
Most of the housing price rises were under the watch of a Labour Government – a party which is supposed to look out for working families.
The failure of the Labour Party to nip the problem in the bud when they had a working majority in Parliament means future solutions run into the political problem that any significant increase in supply of land may push many with recent mortgages such as in Auckland into negative equity.
Since they left office in 2008, leaving land supply regulation in a mess, the approach of Labour has been political opportunism rather than supporting RMA reform.
Labour recently admitted the need to increase the supply of land, but have not put forward practical ideas to increase the supply of land.
The National Party is not much better in terms of real solutions to regulatory constraints on the supply of land.
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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