Why isn’t New Zealand richer and more productive?
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Why isn’t New Zealand richer and more productive?
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Re: Why isn’t New Zealand richer and more productive?
#2Comparing the GNP per capita of New Zealand to Australia gives some interesting results: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%28gross+national+prod...
The variance of the past few years (between 1:1 to 1:2) is quite high. I guess theoretically the biggest difference between the two countries is the mineral wealth of Australia?
Re: Why isn’t New Zealand richer and more productive?
#3Because, as the article says, it's isolated and has a small population.
Tasmania, in Australia, is not as wealthy as the mainland -- it's small and isolated. There are dozens of similar examples.
Meanwhile, Singapore is small, but sits athwart what has been, for hundreds of years, one of the busiest trading lanes on the planet.
Re: Why isn’t New Zealand richer and more productive?
#4[deleted]
Re: Why isn’t New Zealand richer and more productive?
#5The original PDF is here: http://www.productivity.govt.nz/sites/default/files/internat...
Figure 3 in Section 1 was really interesting, but maybe I haven't had enough coffee this morning:
New Zealand is in the lower-right quadrant, which I'm interpreting to mean that it is predicted to be 20+% above the OECD average, but it is observed to be at 20% below, i.e. -40% below expectations
So the top-left quadrant would be the best performers, right? Those that were expected to be below the OECD average but are observed to be higher, e.g. Norway with a +25% above expectations?
(Now that I wrote this out, it makes more sense to me...I was having trouble divining where exactly the USA stood by being in the top far right, but it's more about the distance from the line)
Re: Why isn’t New Zealand richer and more productive?
#6Comparing the GNP per capita of New Zealand to Australia gives some interesting results: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%28gross+national+prod... The variance of the past few years (between 1:1 to 1:2) is quite high. I guess theoretically the biggest difference between the two countries is the mineral wealth of Australia?
Australia is doing unusually well recently, I think due to natural resources as you mentioned. This graph might give a better idea of what has been going on: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=uk+gdp+per+capita+%2F+...
Re: Why isn’t New Zealand richer and more productive?
#7Adam Smith noted cities were founded on "navigable rivers", because that's how trade works. Still true today for cargo ships. But today the internet is a river everywhere, for information goods.
New Zealand is the most beautiful place in the world, in my travels (circumvented the globe, but not been everywhere). Though I'm biased towards mountains.
So, theoretically, beauty+internet makes it a great place for software developers (and other information goods and services producers).
OTOH, NZ has prevented software patents (one of the few countries in the world to do so). Although many software developers love this, consider the question: will it increase investment in patentable inventions, or decrease it?
But in a way it's irrelevant: NZ itself is a tiny market. What counts is patents in other markets, US, Europe, Asia.
Re: Why isn’t New Zealand richer and more productive?
#8Because kiwis are too cool to worry too much about money and productivity.
Re: Why isn’t New Zealand richer and more productive?
#9Because you still need a critical mass of people and interactions to generate enough economic serendipity.
Zuckerberg won't just bump into Sean Parker unless they are in a melting pot.
Re: Why isn’t New Zealand richer and more productive?
#10When your country is as beautiful as NZ you don't have to worry about things like the GDP.