This paper examines sychronisation and volatility of the business cycles of Pacific Rim countries which are closely linked by trade. Close synchronisation is evident amongst groups of countries, but it is difficult to establish meaningful cycle synchronisation between countries outside these...

The Fiscal Responsibility Act 1994 states that, as a principle of responsible fiscal management, a New Zealand government should ensure total Crown debt is at a prudent level by ensuring total operating expenses do not exceed total operating revenues. In this paper a structural VAR model is...

This paper discusses the challenge for fiscal sustainability in New Zealand in the face of the demographic transition involving population ageing and the 'ageing of the aged'. The need for rational policy analysis is stressed in examining a wide range of policy responses and trade-offs, and the...

New Zealand, like many other countries, is experiencing a changing demographic profile from one dominated by young people during the twentieth century to one where the population is more evenly distributed across age groups. This has implications for the government's future fiscal position and...

We use unobserved components methodology to establish an Australasian common cycle, and assess the extent to which region-specific cycles of Australian states and New Zealand are additionally important. West Australian and New Zealand region-specific growth cycles have exhibited distinctively...

There are no official quarterly real GDP estimates for New Zealand, for the period prior to 1977. We report the development of a seasonally-adjusted series for a period of more than 60 years from mid-1947, and evaluate statistical properties. The series were developed by linking quarterly...

Deterministic simulations with the Reserve Bank of New Zealand's core FPS model show how New Zealand's broad macroeconomic environment might have evolved over the 1990s, if a US nominal yield curve and US effective exchange rate movements under a common currency arrangement had been experienced....

This paper introduces contributions made to a June 2011 policy forum, sponsored by the New Zealand Treasury, the Reserve Bank of New Zealand and Victoria University of Wellington. The forum focused on New Zealand's macroeconomic imbalances and possible policy responses. Here we provide an...