New Zealand Economic Growth: An Analysis of Performance and Policy

This paper is one of a series of ongoing contributions to the development of Treasury's understanding of New Zealand economic growth and the development of policy advice on economic growth. It was prepared in response to Treasury Senior Management Group (SMG) commissioning a synthesis of Treasury's work on New Zealand's economic growth performance and the policy issues that are raised by that analysis. The paper provides a review of Treasury's current understanding of New Zealand's historical growth performance, the determinants of economic growth as adduced from the international literature and New Zealand empirical research, and the strengths and weaknesses in New Zealand's policy settings as they apply to economic growth. This paper, which was completed in November 2003, was primarily written with an internal Treasury audience in mind. We are releasing this paper to share our findings with a wider audience and to add to public debate on this important policy area.