The New Zealand Treasury forecasts tax revenue for the twice-yearly Economic and Fiscal Updates. The accuracy of these forecasts is important for the government's annual budget decisions as they affect key fiscal aggregates such as the operating balance and debt levels. Good decision-making in...

The conflicting evidence over class size effects drawn from observational (or correlational) studies on academic achievement or labor market outcomes has provoked great debate in both academic and public policy arenas. The recent experimental evidence from the United States due to the Project...

Effective marginal tax rates (EMTRs) can be very different from the statutory rate and vary across firms, reflecting such factors as the extent and nature of taxable deductions (losses, depreciation), asset and ownership structures, and debt/equity financing. We estimate firm-specific EMTRs and...

This paper develops a new approach for conceptualizing and measuring the risk associated with bank failure. The price of this risk in risk-adjusted present-value terms is estimated at $170-340 million per annum (0.07-0.15% of GDP), representing the price of the financial risk that exists ex-ante...

The aim of this paper is to provide an introduction to the concept of user cost and its determinants. Particular attention is given to the influence of taxation. The concept of user cost relates to the rental, the rate of return to capital, that arises in a profit maximising situation in which...

The paper examines the outcomes of youth not in education, employment or training (NEET) up to four years after the initial long-term spell of NEET. The paper covers outcomes of NEETs in relation to benefit receipt, education, employment and future inactivity. These outcomes are compared across...

This paper examines the relationship between the New Zealand government yield curve and the contribution of global and domestic factors influencing it. We apply the Nelson and Siegel method, which has been widely used internationally for fitting a yield curve, to decompose it into three...

This paper explores, in the context of the Atkinson inequality measure, attempts to make interpretations of orders of magnitude transparent. One suggestion is that the analogy of sharing a cake among a very small number of people provides a useful intuitive description for people who want some...

This paper examines the labour supply responses to the Working for Families (WfF) package of welfare reforms, which was fully implemented in 2008. The policy changes were implemented with the aim to encourage benefit recipients to participate in the labour market and to address income adequacy...

The objective of the paper is to explore the saving and consumption responses of a representative household to a range of policy interventions such as changes in taxes and pension settings. To achieve this, it develops a two-period life-cycle model. The representative household maximises...